University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


From  the  library 

of 
JAMES  D.  HART 


TALES 


OF 


Soldiers  and  Civilians 


BY 

AMBROSE    BIERCE 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

I^.      G. 

208  CALIFORNIA  STREET 
1891. 


Copyrighted,  1891,  by  E.  L.  G.  STEELE. 


DENIED  existence  by  the  chief  publishing  houses 
of  the  country,  this  book  owes  itself  to  Mr.  E. 
L.  G.  STEELE,  merchant,  of  this  city.     In  attesting  Mr. 
STEELE'S  faith  in  his  judgment  and  his  friend,  it  will 
serve  its  author's  main  and  best  ambition. 

A.  B. 
SAN  FRANCISCO,  Sept  4,  i89i. 


THE  TALES  BY  TITLE. 


SOLDIERS—  PAGE, 

A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SKY 9 

AN  OCCURRENCE  AT  OWL  CREEK  BRIDGE 21 

CHICKAMAUGA 41 

A  SON  OF  THE  GODS 55 

ONE  OF  THE  MISSING 69 

KILLED  AT  RESACA 93 

THE  AFFAIR  AT  COULTER'S  NOTCH 105 

A  TOUGH  TUSSLE :...  123 

THE  COUP  DE  GRACE 139 

PARKER  ADDERSON,  PHILOSOPHER 151 

CIVILIANS— 

A  W.ATCHER  BY  THE  DEAD 165 

THE  MAN  AND  THE  SNAKE 187 

A  HOLY  TERROR 200 

THE  SUITABLE  SURROUNDINGS 227 

AN  INHABITANT  OF  CARCOSA 241 

THE  BOARDED  WINDOW 249 

THE  MIDDLE  TOE  OF  THE  BRIGHT  FOOT 259 

HAITA  THE  SHEPHERD 277 

AN  HEIRESS  FROM  RED  HORSE....  ...  289 


SOLDIERS 


A   HORSEMAN   IN   THE   SKY. 


sunny  afternoon  in  the  autumn  of  the 
year  1861,  a  soldier  lay  in  a  clump  of 
laurel  by  the  side  of  a  road  in  Western  Vir- 
ginia. He  lay  at  full  length,  upon  his  stom- 
ach, his  feet  resting  upon  the  toes,  his  head 
upon  the  left  forearm.  His  extended  right 
hand  loosely  grasped  his  rifle.  But  for  the 
somewhat  methodical  disposition  of  his  limbs 
and  a  slight  rhythmic  movement  of  the  car- 
tridge box  at  the  back  of  his  belt,  he  might 
have  been  thought  to  be  dead.  He  was  asleep 
at  his  post  of  duty.  But  if  detected  he  would 
be  dead  shortly  afterward,  that  being  the  just 
and  legal  penalty  of  his  crime. 

The  clump  of  laurel  in  which  the  criminal 
lay  was  in  the  angle  of  a  road  which,  after 
ascending,  southward,  a  steep  acclivity  to  that 
point,  turned  sharply  to  the  west,  running 
along  the  summit  for  perhaps  one  hundred 

(9) 


10 


A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SKY. 


yards.  There  it  turned  southward  again  and 
went  zigzagging  downward  through  the  forest. 
At  the  salient  of  that  second  angle  was  a  large 
flat  rock,  jutting  out  from  the  ridge  to  the 
northward,  overlooking  the  deep  valley  from 
which  the  road  ascended.  The  rock  capped 
a  high  cliff;  a  stone  dropped  from  its  outer 
edge  would  have  fallen  sheer  downward  one 
thousand  feet  to  the  tops  of  the  pines.  The 
angle  where  the  soldier  lay  was  on  another 
spur  of  the  same  cliff.  Had  he  been  awake 
he  would  have  commanded  a  view,  not  only 
of  the  short  arm  of  the  road  and  the  jutting 
rock  but  of  the  entire  profile  of  the  cliff  below 
it.  It  might  well  have  made  him  giddy  to 
look. 

The  country  was  wooded  everywhere  ex- 
cept at  the  bottom  of  the  valley  to  the  north- 
ward, where  there  was  a  small  natural  meadow, 
through  which  flowed  a  stream  scarcely  visible 
from  the  valley's  rim.  This  open  ground 
looked  hardly  larger  than  an  ordinary  door- 
yard,  but  was  really  several  acres  in  extent. 
Its  green  was  more  vivid  than  that  of  the  in- 
closing forest.  Away  beyond  it  rose  a  line  of 
giant  cliffs  similar  to  those  upon  which  we  are 
supposed  to  stand  in  our  survey  of  the  savage 
scene,  and  through  which  the  road  had  some- 


A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SKY. 


II 


how  made  its  climb  to  the  summit.  The  con- 
figuration of  the  valley,  indeed,  was  such  that 
from  our  point  of  observation  it  seemed  en- 
tirely shut  in,  and  one  could  not  but  have 
wondered  how  the  road  which  found  a  way 
out  of  it  had  found  a  way  into  it,  and  whence 
came  and  whither  went  the  waters  of  the 
stream  that  parted  the  meadow  two  thousand 
feet  below. 

No  country  is  so  wild  and  difficult  but  men 
will  make  it  a  theater  of  war;  concealed  in  the 
forest  at  the  bottom  of  that  military  rat  trap, 
in  which  half  a  hundred  men  in  possession  of 
the  exits  might  have  starved  an  army  to  sub 
mission,  lay  five  regiments  of  Federal  infantry. 
They  had  marched  all  the  previous  day  and 
night  and  were  resting.  At  nightfall  they 
would  take  to  the  road  again,  climb  to  the 
place  where  their  unfaithful  sentinel  now  slept, 
and,  descending  the  other  slope  of  the  ridge, 
fall  upon  a  camp  of  the  enemy  at  about  mid- 
night. Their  hope  was  to  surprise  it,  for 
the  road  lead  to  the  rear  of  it.  In  case  of 
failure  their  position  would  be  perilous  in  the 
extreme;  and  fail  they  surely  would  should 
accident  or  vigilance  apprise  the  enemy  of 
the  movement. 

The  sleeping  sentinel  in  the  clump  of  laurel 


12 


A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SAT. 


was  a  young  Virginian  named  Carter  Druse. 
He  was  the  son  of  wealthy  parents,  an  only 
child,  and  had  known  such  ease  and  cultiva- 
tion and  high  living  as  wealth  and  taste  were 
able  to  command  in  the  mountain  country  of 
Western  Virginia.  His  home  was  but  a  few 
miles  from  where  he  now  lay.  One  morning 
he  had  risen  from  the  breakfast  table  and  said, 
quietly  but  gravely:  "  Father,  a  Union  regi- 
ment has  arrived  at  Grafton.  I  am  going  to 
join  it." 

The  father  lifted  his  leonine  head,  looked 
at  the  son  a  moment  in  silence,  and  replied: 
"Go,  Carter,  and,  whatever  may  occur,  do 
what  you  conceive  to  be  your  duty.  Virginia, 
to  which  you  are  a  traitor,  must  get  on  with- 
out you.  Should  we  both  live  to  the  end  of 
the  war,  we  will  speak  further  of  the  matter. 
Your  mother,  as  the  physician  has  informed 
you,  is  in  a  most  critical  condition;  at  the  best 
she  cannot  be  with  us  longer  than  a  few  weeks, 
but  that  time  is  precious.  It  would  be  better 
not  to  disturb  her." 

So  Carter  Druse,  bowing  reverently  to  his 
father,  who  returned  the  salute  with  a  stately 
courtesy  which  masked  a  breaking  heart,  left 
the  home  of  his  childhood  to  go  soldiering. 
By  conscience  and  courage,  by  deeds  of  de- 


A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SKY.  j^ 

votion  and  daring,  he  soon  commended  him- 
self to  his  fellows  and  his  officers;  and  it  was 
to  these  qualities  and  to  some  knowledge  of 
the  country  that  he  owed  his' selection  for  his 
present  perilous  duty  at  the  extreme  outpost. 
Nevertheless,  fatigue  had  been  stronger  than 
resolution,  and  he  had  fallen  asleep.  What 
good  or  bad  angel  came  in  a  dream  to  rouse 
him  from  his  state  of  crime  who  shall  say? 
Without  a  movement,  without  a  sound,  in  the 
profound  silence  and  the  languor  of  the  late 
afternoon,  some  invisible  messenger  of  fate 
touched  with  unsealing  finger  the  eyes  of  his 
consciousness — whispered  into  the  ear  of  his 
spirit  the  mysterious  awakening  word  which 
no  human  lips  have  ever  spoken,  no  human 
memory  ever  has  recalled.  He  quietly  raised 
his  forehead  from  his  arm  and  looked  between 
the  masking  stems  of  the  laurels,  instinctively 
closing  his  right  hand  about  the  stock  of  his 
rifle. 

His  first  feeling  was  a  keen  artistic  delight. 
Qn  a  colossal  pedestal,  the  cliff,  motionless  at 
the  extreme  edge  of  the  capping  rock  and 
sharply  outlined  against  the  sky,  was  an  eques- 
trian statue  of  impressive  dignity.  The  figure 
of  the  man  sat  the  figure  of  the  horse,  straight 
and  soldierly,  but  with  the  repose  of  a  Grecian 


j,  A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SKY. 

god  carved  in  the  marble  which  limits  the 
suggestion  of  activity.  The  gray  costume 
harmonized  with  its  aerial  background;  the 
metal  of  accouterment  and  caparison  was  sof- 
tened and  subdued  by  the  shadow;  the  ani- 
mal's skin  had  no  points  of  high  light.  A 
carbine,  strikingly  foreshortened,  lay  across 
the  pommel  of  the  saddle,  kept  in  place  by 
the  right  hand  grasping  it  at  the  "grip"  ;  the 
left  hand,  holding  the  bridle  rein,  was  in- 
visible. In  silhouette  against  the  sky,  the 
profile  of  the  horse  was  cut  with  the  sharp- 
ness of  a  cameo;  it  looked  across  the  heights 
of  air  to  the  confronting  cliffs  beyond.  The 
face  of  the  rider,  turned  slightly  to  the  left, 
showed  only  an  outline  of  temple  and  beard; 
he  was  looking  downward  to  the  bottom  of 
the  valley.  Magnified  by  its  lift  against  the 
sky  and  by  the  soldier's  testifying  sense  of 
the  formidableness  of  a  near  enemy,  the  group 
appeared  of  heroic,  almost  colossal,  size. 

For  an  instant  Druse  had  a  strange,  half- 
defined  feeling  that  he  had  slept  to  the  end 
of  the  war  and  was  looking  upon  a  noble 
work  of  art  reared  upon  that  commanding 
eminence  to  commemorate  the  deeds  of  an 
heroic  past  of  which  he  had  been  an  inglori- 
ous part.  The  feeling  was  dispelled  by  a 


A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SKY.  ^ 

slight  movement  of  the  group;  the  horse, 
without  moving  its  feet,  had  drawn  its  body 
slightly  backward  from  the  verge;  the  man 
remained  immobile  as  before.  '  Broad  awake 
and  keenly  alive  to  the  significance  of  the 
situation,  Druse  now  brought  the  butt  of  his 
rifle  against  his  cheek  by  cautiously  pushing 
the  barrel  forward  through  the  bushes,  cocked 
the  piece,  and,  glancing  through  the  sights, 
covered  a  vital  spot  of  the  horseman's  breast. 
A  touch  upon  the  trigger  and  all  would  have 
been  well  with  Carter  Druse.  At  that  instant 
the  horseman  turned  his  head  and  looked  in 
the  direction  of  his  concealed  foeman — seemed 
to  look  into  his  very  face,  into  his  eyes,  into 
his  brave,  compassionate  heart. 

Is  it,  then,  so  terrible  to  kill  an  enemy  in 
war — an  enemy  who  has  surprised  a  secret 
vital  to  the  safety  of  one's  self  and  comrades — 
an  enemy  more  formidable  for  his  knowledge 
than  all  his  army  for  its  numbers?  Carter 
Druse  grew  deathly  pale;  he  shook  in  every 
limb,  turned  faint,  and  saw  the  statuesque 
group  before  him  as  black  figures,  rising, 
falling,  moving  unsteadily  in  arcs  of  circles 
in  a  fiery  sky.  His  hand  fell  away  from  his 
weapon,  his  head  slowly  dropped  until  his 
face  rested  on  the  leaves  in  which  he  lay. 


j^  A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SKY. 

This  courageous  gentleman  and  hardy  soldier 
was  near  swooning  from  intensity  of  emotion. 
It  was  not  for  long;  in  another  moment  his 
face  was  raised  from  earth,  his  hands  resumed 
their  places  on  the  rifle,  his  forefinger  sought 
the  trigger;  mind,  heart,  ai.d  eyes  were  clear, 
conscience  and  reason  sound.  He  could  not 
hope  to  capture  that  enemy;  to  alarm  him 
would  but  send  him  dashing  to  his  camp  with 
his  fatal  news.  The  duty  of  the  soldier  was 
plain:  the  man  must  be  shot  dead  from  am- 
bush— without  warning,  without  a  moment's 
spiritual  preparation,  with  never  so  much  as 
an  unspoken  prayer,  he  must  be  sent  to  his 
account.  But  no — there  is  a  hope;  he  may 
have  discovered  nothing — perhaps  he  is  but 
admiring  the  sublimity  of  the  landscape.  If 
permitted  he  may  turn  and  ride  carelessly 
away  in  the  direction  whence  he  came.  Surely 
it  will  be  possible  to  judge  at  the  instant  of  his 
withdrawing  whether  he  knows.  It  may  well 
be  that  his  fixity  of  attention — Druse  turned 
his  head  and  looked  below,  through  the  deeps 
of  air  downward,  as  from  the  surface  to  the 
bottom  of  a  translucent  sea.  He  saw  creep- 
ing across  the  green  meadow  a  sinuous  line 
of  figures  of  men  and  horses — some  foolish 
commander  was  permitting  the  soldiers  of  his 


A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SKY.  T« 

escort  to  water  their  beasts  in  the  open,  in 
plain  view  from,  a  hundred  summits ! 

Druse  withdrew  his  eyes  from  the  valley 
and  fixed  them  again  upon  the  group  of  man 
and  horse  in  the  sky,  and  again  it  was  through 
the  sights  of  his  rifle.  But  this  time  his  aim 
was  at  the  horse.  In  his  memory,  as  if  they 
were  a  divine  mandate,  rang  the  words  of 
his  father  at  their  parting,  "Whatever  may 
occur,  do  what  you  conceive  to  be  your  duty." 
He  was  calm  now.  His  teeth  were  firmly  but 
not  rigidly  closed;  his  nerves  were  as  tranquil 
as  a  sleep  ng  babe's — not  a  tremor  affected 
any  muscle  of  his  body;  his  breathing,  until 
suspended  in  the  act  of  taking  aim,  was  reg- 
ular and  slow.  Duty  had  conquered;  the 
spirit  had  said  to  the  body :  ' '  Peace,  be  still. ' ' 
He  fired. 

At  that  moment  an  officer  of  the  Federal 
force,  who,  in  a  spirit  of  adventure  or  in  quest 
of  knowledge,  had  left  the  hidden  bivouac  in 
the  valley,  and,  with  aimless  feet,  had  made 
his  way  to  the  lower  edge  of  a  small  open 
space  near  the  foot  of  the  cliff,  was  consider- 
ing what  he  had  to  gain  by  pushing  his  ex- 
ploration further.  At  a  distance  of  a  quarter 
mile  before  him,  but  apparently  at  a  stone's 
throw,  rose  from  its  fringe  of  pines  the  gigan- 
2 


jg  A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SKY. 

tic  face  of  rock,  towering  to  so  great  a  height 
above  him  that  it  made  him  giddy  to  look 
up  to  where  its  edge  cut  a  sharp,  rugged  line 
against  the  sky.  At  some  distance  away  to 
his  right  it  presented  a  clean,  vertical  profile 
against  a  background  of  blue  sky  to  a  point 
half  of  the  way  down,  and  of  distant  hills 
hardly  less  blue  thence  to  the  tops  of  the  trees 
at  its  base.  Lifting  his  eyes  to  the  dizzy  alti- 
tude of  its  summit,  the  officer  saw  an  astonish- 
ing sight — a  man  on  horseback  riding  down 
into  the  valley  through  the  air! 

Straight  upright  sat  the  rider,  in  military 
fashion,  with  a  firm  seat  in  the  saddle,  a  strong 
clutch  upon  the  rein  to  hold  his  charger  from 
too  impetuous  a  plunge.  From  his  bare  head 
his  long  hair  streamed  upward,  waving  like  a 
plume.  His  right  hand  was  concealed  in  the 
cloud  of  the  horse's  lifted  mane.  The  ani- 
mal's body  was  as  level  as  if  every  hoof  stroke 
encountered  the  resistant  earth.  Its  motions 
were  those  of  a  wild  gallop,  but  even  as  the 
officer  looked  they  ceased,  with  all  the  legs 
thrown  sharply  forward  as  in  the  act  of  alight- 
ing from  a  leap.  But  this  was  a  flight! 

Filled  with  amazement  and  terror  by  this 
apparition  of  a  horseman  in  the  sky — half  be- 
lieving himself  the  chosen  scribe  of  some  new 


A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SKY.  jg 

Apocalypse,  the  officer  was  overcome  by  the 
intensity  of  his  emotions;  his  legs  failed  him 
and  he  fell.  Almost  at  the  same  instant  he 
heard  a  crashing  sound  in  the  'trees — a  sound 
that  died  without  an  echo,  and  all  was  still. 

The  officer  rose  to  his  feet,  trembling.  The 
familiar  sensation  of  an  abraded  shin  recalled 
his  dazed  faculties.  Pulling  himself  together, 
he  ran  rapidly  obliquely  away  from  the  cliff 
to  a  point  a  half-mile  from  its  foot;  thereabout 
he  expected  to  find  his  man;  and  thereabout 
he  naturally  failed.  In  the  fleeting  instant  of 
his  vision  his  imagination  had  been  so  wrought 
upon  by  the  apparent  grace  and  ease  and  in- 
tention of  the  marvelous  performance  that  it 
did  not  occur  to  him  that  the  line  of  march  of 
aerial  cavalry  is  directly  downward,  and  that 
he  could  find  the  objects  of  his  search  at  the 
very  foot  of  the  cliff.  A  half  hour  later  he 
returned  to  camp. 

This  officer  was  a  wise  man;  he  knew  better 
than  to  tell  an  incredible  truth.  He  said 
nothing  of  what  he  had  seen.  But  when  the 
commander  asked  him  if  in  his  scout  he  had 
learned  anything  of  advantage  to  the  expedi- 
tion, he  answered: — 

"Yes,  sir;  there  is  no  road  leading  down 
into  this  valley  from  the  southward." 


20 


A  HORSEMAN  IN  THE  SKY 


The  commander,  knowing  better,  smiled. 

After  firing  his  shot  private  Carter  Druse 
reloaded  his  rifle  and  resumed  his  watch. 
Ten  minutes  had  hardly  passed  when  a  Fed- 
eral sergeant  crept  cautiously  to  him  on  hands 
and  knees.  Druse  neither  turned  his  head 
nor  looked  at  him,  but  lay  without  motion  or 
sign  of  recognition. 

"Did  you  fire?"  the  sergeant  whispered. 

"Yes." 

1 '  At  what  ? ' ' 

'  'A  horse.  It  was  standing  on  yonder  rock 
—pretty  far  out.  You  see  it  is  no  longer 
there.  It  went  over  the  cliff. " 

The  man's  face  was  white  but  he  showed 
no  other  sign  of  emotion.  Having  answered, 
he  turned  away  his  face  and  said  no  more. 
The  sergeant  did  not  understand. 

"See  here,  Druse,"  he  said,  after  a  mo- 
ment's silence,  "it's  no  use  making  a  mys- 
tery. I  order  you  to  report.  Was  there 
anybody  on  the  horse?" 

"Yes." 

"Who?" 

"My  father." 

The  sergeant  rose  to  his  feet  and  walked 
away.  ' '  Good  God  ! "  he  said. 


AN  OCCURRENCE  AT  OWL  CREEK 
BRIDGE. 

I. 

A  MAN  stood  upon  a  railroad  bridge  in 
Northern  Alabama,  looking  down  into 
the  swift  waters  twenty  feet  below.  The  man' s 
hands  were  behind  his  back,  the  wrists  bound 
with  a  cord.  A  rope  loosely  encircled  his 
neck.  It  was  attached  to  a  stout  cross-timber 
above  his  head,  and  the  slack  fell  to  the  level 
of  his  knees.  Some  loose  boards  laid  upon 
the  sleepers  supporting  the  metals  of  the  rail- 
way supplied  a  footing  for  him,  and  his  exe- 
cutioners— two  private  soldiers  of  the  Federal 
army,  directed  by  a  sergeant,  who  in  civil  life 
may  have  been  a  deputy  sheriff.  At  a  short 
remove  upon  the  same  temporary  platform 
was  an  officer  in  the  uniform  of  his  rank, 
armed.  He  was  a  captain.  A  sentinel  at 
each  end  of  the  bridge  stood  with  his  rifle  in 
the  position  known  as  "support,"  that  is  to 
say,  vertical  in  front  of  the  left  shoulder,  the 

(21) 


22 


AN   OCCURRENCE 


hammer  resting  on  the  forearm  thrown 
straight  across  the  chest — a  formal  and  un- 
natural position,  enforcing  an  erect  carriage 
of  the  body.  It  did  not  appear  to  be  the 
duty  of  these  two  men  to  know  what  was 
occurring  at  the  center  of  the  bridge;  they 
merely  blockaded  the  two  ends  of  the  foot 
plank  which  traversed  it. 

Beyond  one  of  the  sentinels  nobody  was  in 
sight;  the  railroad  ran  straight  away  into  a 
forest  for  a  hundred  yards,  then,  curving,  was 
lost  to  view.  Doubtless  there  was  an  outpost 
further  along.  The  other  bank  of  the  stream 
was  open  ground — a  gentle  acclivity  crowned 
with  a  stockade  of  vertical  tree  trunks,  loop- 
holed  for  rifles,  with  a  single  embrasure 
through  which  protruded  the  muzzle  of  a 
brass  cannon  commanding  the  bridge.  Mid- 
way of  the  slope  between  bridge  and  fort 
were  the  spectators — a  single  company  of 
infantry  in  line,  at  "parade  rest,"  the  butts 
of  the  rifles  on  the  ground,  the  barrels  in- 
clining slightly  backward  against  the  right 
shoulder,  the  hands  crossed  upon  the  stock. 
A  lieutenant  stood  at  the  right  of  the  line,  the 
point  of  his  sword  upon  the  ground,  his  left 
hand  resting  upon  his  right.  Excepting  the 
group  of  four  at  the  center  of  the  bridge  not  a 


AT  OWL  CREEK  BRIDGE.  2$ 

man  moved.  The  company  faced  the  bridge, 
staring  stonily,  motionless.  The  sentinels, 
facing  the  banks  of  the  stream,  might  have 
been  statues  to  adorn  the  bridge.  The  cap- 
tain stood  with  folded  arms,  silent,  observing 
the  work  of  his  subordinates  but  making  no 
sign.  Death  is  a  dignitary  who,  when  he 
comes  announced,  is  to  be  received  with 
formal  manifestations  of  respect,  even  by 
those  most  familiar  with  him.  In  the  code 
of  military  etiquette  silence  and  fixity  are 
forms  of  deference. 

The  man  who  was  engaged  in  being  hanged 
was  apparently  about  thirty-five  years  of  age. 
He  was  a  civilian,  if  one  might  judge  from  his 
dress,  which  was  that  of  a  planter.  His  fea- 
tures were  good — a  straight  nose,  firm  mouth, 
broad  forehead,  from  which  his  long,  dark  hair 
was  combed  straight  back,  falling  behind  his 
ears  to  the  collar  of  his  well-fitting  frock  coat. 
He  wore  a  mustache  and  pointed  beard  but 
no  whiskers;  his  eyes  were  large  and  dark 
gray  and  had  a  kindly  expression  which  one 
would  hardly  have  expected  in  one  whose 
neck  was  in  the  hemp.  Evidently  this  was 
no  vulgar  assassin.  .  The  liberal  military  code 
makes  provision  for  hanging  many  kinds  of 
people,  and  gentlemen  are  not  excluded. 


24  AN  OCCURRENCE 

The  preparations  being  complete,  the  two 
private  soldiers  stepped  aside  and  each  drew 
away  the  plank  upon  which  he  had  been  stand- 
ing. The  sergeant  turned  to  the  captain, 
saluted  and  placed  himself  immediately  be- 
hind that  officer,  who  in  turn  moved  apart 
one  pace.  These  movements  left  the  con- 
demned man  and  the  sergeant  standing  on  the 
two  ends  of  the  same  plank,  which  spanned 
three  of  the  cross-ties  of  the  bridge.  The 
end  upon  which  the  civilian  stood  almost,  but 
not  quite,  reached  a  fourth.  This  plank  had 
been  held  in  place  by  the  weight  of  the  cap- 
tain; it  was  now  held  by  that  of  the  sergeant. 
At  a  signal  from  the  former,  the  latter  would 
step  aside,  the  plank  would  tilt  and  the  con- 
demned man  go  down  between  two  ties.  The 
arrangement  commended  itself  to  his  judg- 
ment as  simple  and  effective.  His  face  had 
not  been  covered  nor  his  eyes  bandaged.  He 
looked  a  moment  at  his  ' '  unsteadfast  footing," 
then  let  his  gaze  wander  to  the  swirling  water 
of  the  stream  racing  madly  beneath  his  feet. 
A  piece  of  dancing  driftwood  caught  his  at- 
tention and  his  eyes  followed  it  down  the 
current.  How  slowly  it  appeared  to  move! 
What  a  sluggish  stream ! 

He  closed  his  eyes  in  order  to  fix  his  last 


AT  OWL  CREEK  BRIDGE.  25 

thoughts  upon  his  wife  and  children.  The 
water,  touched  to  gold  by  the  early  sun,  the 
brooding  mists  under  the  banks  at  some  dis- 
tance down  the  stream,  the  fort,  the  soldiers, 
the  piece  of  drift — all  had  distracted  him. 
And  now  he  became  conscious  of  a  new  dis- 
turbance. Striking  through  the  thought  of 
his  dear  ones  was  a  sound  which  he  could 
neither  ignore  nor  understand,  a  sharp,  dis- 
tinct, metallic  percussion  like  the  stroke  of  a 
blacksmith's  hammer  upon  the  anvil;  it  had 
the  same  ringing  quality.  He  wondered 
what  it  was,  and  whether  immeasurably  dis- 
tant or  near  by — it  seemed  both.  Its  recur- 
rence was  regular,  but  as  slow  as  the  tolling 
of  a  death  knell.  He  awaited  each  stroke  with 
impatience  and — he  knew  not  why — appre- 
hension. The  intervals  of  silence  grew  pro- 
gressively longer;  the  delays  became  mad- 
dening. With  their  greater  infrequency  the 
sounds  increased  in  strength  and  sharpness. 
They  hurt  his  ear  like  the  thrust  of  a  knife; 
he  feared  he  would  shriek.  What  he  heard 
was  the  ticking  of  his  watch. 

He  unclosed  his  eyes  and  saw  again  the 
water  below  him.  "  If  I  could  free  my  hands," 
he  thought,  "I  might  throw  off  the  noose 
and  spring  into  the  stream.  By  diving  I 


26  AN  OCCURRENCE 

could  evade  the  bullets,  and,  swimming  vigor- 
ously, reach  the  bank,  take  to  the  woods,  and 
get  away  home.  My  home,  thank  God,  is 
as  yet  outside  their  lines;  my  wife  and  little 
ones  are  still  beyond  the  invader's  farthest 
advance. ' ' 

As  these  thoughts,  which  have  here  to  be 
set  down  in  words,  were  flashed  into  the 
doomed  man's  brain  rather  than  evolved  from 
it,  the  captain  nodded  to  the  sergeant.  The 
sergeant  stepped  aside. 

II. 

Peyton  Farquhar  was  a.  well-to-do  planter, 
of  an  old  and  highly-respected  Alabama  fam- 
ily. Being  a  slave  owner,  and,  like  other 
slave  owners,  a  politician,  he  was  naturally 
an  original  secessionist  and  ardently  devoted 
to  the  Southern  cause.  Circumstances  of  an 
imperious  nature  which  it  is  unnecessary  to 
relate  here,  had  prevented  him  from  taking 
service  with  the  gallant  army  which  had 
fought  the  disastrous  campaigns  ending  with 
the  fall  of  Corinth,  and  he  chafed  under  the 
inglorious  restraint,  longing  for  the  release  ot 
his  energies,  the  larger  life  of  the  soldier,  the 
opportunity  for  distinction.  That  opportu- 
nity, he  felt,  would  come,  as  it  comes  to  all  in 


AT  OWL   CREEK  BRIDGE.  2J 

war  time.  Meanwhile  he  did  what  he  could. 
No  service  was  too  humble  for  him  to  perform 
in  aid  of  the  South,  no  adventure  too  perilous 
for  him  to  undertake  if  consistent  with  the 
character  of  a  civilian  who  was  at  heart  a 
soldier,  and  who  in  good  faith  and  without 
too  much  qualification  assented  to  at  least  a 
part  of  the  frankly  villainous  dictum  that  all 
is  fair  in  love  and  war. 

One  evening  while  Farquhar  and  his  wife 
were  sitting  on  a  rustic  bench  near  the  en- 
trance to  his  grounds,  a  gray-clad  soldier 
rode  up  to  the  gate  and  asked  for  a  drink  of 
water.  Mrs.  Farquhar  was  only  too  happy  to 
serve  him  with  her  own  white  hands.  While 
she  was  gone  to  fetch  the  water,  her  husband 
approached  the  dusty  horseman  and  inquired 
eagerly  for  news  from  the  front. 

"The  Yanks  are  repairing  the  railroads," 
said  the  man,  "and  are  getting  ready  for  an- 
other advance.  They  have  reached  the  Owl 
Creek  bridge,  put  it  in  order,  and  built  a 
stockade  on  the  other  bank.  The  comman- 
dant has  issued  an  order,  which  is  posted 
everywhere,  declaring  that  any  civilian  caught 
interfering  with  the  railroad,  its  bridges,  tun- 
nels, or  trains,  will  be  summarily  hanged.  I 
saw  the  order." 


28  AN  OCCURRENCE 

"How  far  is  it  to  the  Owl  Creek  bridge?" 
Farquhar  asked. 

"About  thirty  miles?" 

' '  Is  there  no  force  on  this  side  the  creek  ? ' ' 

' '  Only  a  picket  post  half  a  mile  out,  on  the 
railroad,  and  a  single  sentinel  at  this  end  of 
the  bridge. ' ' 

"  Suppose  a  man — a  civilian  and  student  of 
hanging — should  elude  the  picket  post  and 
perhaps  get  the  better  of  the  sentinel, ' '  said 
Farquhar,  smiling,  "what  could  he  accom- 
plish?" 

The  soldier  reflected.  "I  was  there  a 
month  ago,"  he  replied.  "I  observed  that 
the  flood  of  last  winter  had  lodged  a  great 
quantity  of  driftwood  against  the  wooden  pier 
at  this  end  of  the  bridge.  It  is  now  dry  and 
would  burn  like  tow." 

The  lady  had  now  brought  the  water,  which 
the  soldier  drank.  He  thanked  her  ceremo- 
niously ,  bowed  to  her  husband,  and  rode  away. 
An  hour  later,  after  nightfall,  he  repassed  the 
plantation,  going  northward  in  the  direction 
from  which  he  had  come.  He  was  a  Federal 
scout. 

III. 

As  Peyton  Farquhar  fell  straight  downward 
through  the  bridge,  he  lost  consciousness  and 


AT  OWL  CREEK  BRIDGE.  2Q 

was  as  one  already  dead.  From  this  state  he 
was  awakened — ages  later,  it  seemed  to  him — 
by  the  pain  of  a  sharp  pressure  upon  his 
throat,  followed  by  a  sense  of 'suffocation. 
Keen,  poignant  agonies  seemed  to  shoot  from 
his  neck  downward  through  every  fiber  of 
his  body  and'  limbs.  These  pains  appeared 
to  flash  along  well-defined  lines  of  ramifica- 
tion and  to  beat  with  an  inconceivably  rapid 
periodicity.  They  seemed  like  streams  of 
pulsating  fire  heating  him  to  an  intolerable 
temperature.  As  to  his  head,  he  was  con- 
scious of  nothing  but  a  feeling  of  fullness — 
of  congestion.  These  sensations  were  unac- 
companied by  thought.  The  intellectual  part 
of  his  nature  was  already  effaced;  he  had 
power  only  to  feel,  and  feeling  was  torment. 
He  was  conscious  of  motion.  Encompassed 
in  a  luminous  cloud,  of  which  he  was  now 
merely  the  fiery  heart,  without  material  sub- 
stance, he  swung  through  unthinkable  arcs 
of  oscillation,  like  a  vast  pendulum.  Then 
all  at  once,  with  terrible  suddenness,  the  light 
about  him  shot  upward  with  the  noise  of  a 
loud  plash ;  a  frightful  roaring  was  in  his  ears, 
and  all  was  cold  and  dark.  The  power  of 
thought  was  restored;  he  knew  that  the  rope 
had  broken  and  he  had  fallen  into  the  stream. 


30  AN  OCCURRENCE 

There  was  no  additional  strangulation;  the 
noose  about  his  neck  was  already  suffocating 
him  and  kept  the  water  from  his  lungs.  To 
die  of  hanging  at  the  bottom  of  a  river! — the 
idea  seemed  to  him  ludicrous.  He  opened 
his  eyes  in  the  blackness  and  saw  above  him 
a  gleam  of  light,  but  how  distant,  how  inac- 
cessible! He  vas  still  sinking,  for  the  light 
became  fainter  and  fainter  until  it  was  a 
mere  glimmer.  Then  it  began  to  grow  and 
brighten,  and  he  knew  that  he  was  rising  to- 
ward the  surface —  knew  it  with  reluctance,  for 
he  was  now  very  comfortable.  "To  be 
hanged  and  drowned,"  he  thought,  "that  is 
not  so  bad;  but  I  do  not  wish  to  be  shot. 
No;  I  will  not  be  shot;  that  is  not  fair." 

He  was  not  conscious  of  an  effort,  but  a 
sharp  pain  in  his  wrists  apprised  him  that  he 
was  trying  to  free  his  hands.  He  gave  the 
struggle  his  attention,  as  an  idler  might  ob- 
serve the  feat  of  a  juggler,  without  interest  in 
the  outcome.  What  splendid  effort! — what 
magnificent,  wrhat  superhuman  strength !  Ah, 
that  was  a  fine  endeavor!  Bravo!  The  cord 
fell  away;  his  arms  parted  and  floated  upward, 
the  hands  dimly  seen  on  each  side  in  the 
growing  light.  He  watched  them  with  a  new 
interest  as  first  one  and  then  the  other 


A  T  OWL  CREEK  BRIDGE.  31 

pounced  upon  the  noose  at  his  neck.  They 
tore  it  away  and  thrust  it  fiercely  aside,  its 
undulations  resembling  those  of  a  water  snake. 
"Put  it  back,  put  it  back!"  He  thought  he 
shouted  these  words  to  his  hands,  for  the  un- 
doing of  the  noose  had  been  succeeded  by  the 
direst  pang  which  he  had  yet  experienced. 
His  neck  ached  horribly;  his  brain  was  on 
fire;  his  heart,  which  had  been  fluttering  faintly, 
gave  a  great  leap,  trying  to  force  itself  out  at 
his  mouth.  His  whole  body  was  racked  and 
wrenched  with  an  insupportable  anguish !  But 
his  disobedient  hands  gave  no  heed  to  the 
command.  They  beat  the  water  vigorously 
with  quick,  downward  strokes,  forcing  him  to 
the  surface.  He  felt  his  head  emerge;  his 
eyes  were  blinded  by  the  sunlight;  his  chest 
expanded  convulsively,  and  with  a  supreme 
and  crowning  agony  his  lungs  engulfed  a 
great  draught  of  air,  which  instantly  he  ex- 
pelled in  a  shriek! 

He  was* now  in  full  possession  of  his  phys- 
ical senses.  They  were,  indeed,  preternatu- 
rally  keen  and  alert.  Something  in  the  awful 
disturbance  of  his  organic  system  had  so  ex- 
alted and  refined  them  that  they  made  record 
of  things  never  before  perceived.  He  felt  the 
ripples  upon  his  face  and  heard  their  separate 


32  AN  OCCURRENCE 

sounds  as  they  struck.  He  looked  at  the  for- 
est on  the  bank  of  the  stream,  saw  the  indi^ 
vidual  trees,  the  leaves  and  the  veining  of  each 
leaf — saw  the  very  insects  upon  them,  the 
locusts,  the  brilliant-bodied  flies,  the  gray  spi- 
ders stretching  their  webs  from  twig  to  twig. 
He  noted  the  prismatic  colors  in  all  the  dew- 
drops  upon  a  million  blades  of  grass.  The 
humming  of  the  gnats  that  danced  above  the 
eddies  of  the  stream,  the  beating  of  the 
dragon  flies'  wings,  the  strokes  of  the  water 
spiders'  legs,  like  oars  which  had  lifted  their 
boat — all  these  made  audible  music.  A  fish 
slid  along  beneath  his  eyes  and  he  heard  the 
rush  of  its  body  parting  the  water. 

He  had  come  to  the  surface  facing  down 
the  stream;  in  a  moment  the  visible  world 
seemed  to  wheel  slowly  round,  himself  the 
pivotal  point,  and  he  saw  the  bridge,  the  fort, 
the  soldiers  upon  the  bridge,  the  captain, 
the  sergeant,  the  two  privates,  his  execution- 
ers. They  were  in  silhouette  against  the  blue 
sky.  They  shouted  and  gesticulated,  point- 
ing at  him;  the  captain  had  drawn  his  pistol, 
but  did  not  fire;  the  others  were  unarmed. 
Their  movements  were  grotesque  and  horrible, 
their  forms  gigantic. 

Suddenly   he   heard   a  sharp   report  and 


AT  OWL  CREEK  BRIDGE.  33 

something  struck  the  water  smartly  within  a 
few  inches  of  his  head,  spattering  his  face 
with  spray.  He  heard  a  second  report,  and 
saw  one  of  the  sentinels  with  his  rifle  at 
his  shoulder,  a  light  cloud  of  blue  smoke  ris- 
ing from  the  muzzle.  The  man  in  the  water 
saw  the  eye  of  the  man  on  the  bridge  gazing 
into  his  own  through  the  sights  of  the  rifle. 
He  observed  that  it  was  a  gray  eye,  and  re- 
membered having  read  that  gray  eyes  were 
keenest  and  that  all  famous  marksmen  had 
them.  Nevertheless,  this  one  had  missed. 

A  counter  swirl  had  caught  Farquhar  and 
turned  him  half  round;  he  was  again  looking 
into  the  forest  on  the  bank  opposite  the  fort. 
The  sound  of  a  clear,  high  voice  in  a  monoto- 
nous singsong  now  rang  out  behind  him 
and  came  across  the  water  with  a  distinctness 
that  pierced  and  subdued  all  other  sounds, 
even  the  beating  of  the  ripples  in  his  ears. 
Although  no  soldier,  he  had  frequented 
camps  enough  to  know  the  dread  significance 
of  that  deliberate,  drawling,  aspirated  chant; 
the  lieutenant  on  shore  was  taking  a  part  in 
the  Coming's  work.  How  coldly  and  piti- 
lessly— with  what  an  even,  calm  intonation, 
presaging  and  enforcing  tranquillity  in  the 
men — with  what  accurately-measured  inter- 
vals fell  those  cruel  words : 
3 


34  AN  OCCURRENCE 

''Attention,  company.  .  .  .  Shoulder 
arms.  .  .  .  Ready.  .  .  .  Aim.  .  .  . 
Fire." 

Farquhar  dived — dived  as  deeply  as  he 
could.  The  water  roared  in  his  ears  like  the 
voice  of  Niagara,  yet  he  heard  the  dulled 
thunder  of  the  volley,  and,  rising  again  to- 
ward the  surface,  met  shining  bits  of  metal, 
singularly  flattened,  oscillating  slowly  down- 
ward. Some  of  them  touched  him  on  the 
face  and  hands,  then  fell  away,  continuing 
their  descent.  One  lodged  between  his  col- 
lar and  neck;  it  was  uncomfortably  warm,  and 
he  snatched  it  out. 

As  he  rose  to  the  surface,  gasping  for 
breath,  he  saw  that  he  had  been  a  long  time 
under  water;  he  was  perceptibly  farther 
down  stream — nearer  to  safety.  The  soldiers 
had  almost  finished  reloading;  the  metal 
ramrods  flashed  all  at  once  in  the  sunshine  as 
they  were  drawn  from  the  barrels,  turned  in 
the  air,  and  thrust  into  their  sockets.  The 
two  sentinels  fired  again,  independently  and 
ineffectually. 

The  hunted  man  saw  all  this  over  his  shoul- 
der; he  was  now  swimming  vigorously  with 
the  current.  His  brain  was  as  energetic  as  his 
arms  and  legs;  he  thought  with  the  rapidity 
of  lightning. 


AT  OWL  CREEK  BRIDGE.  35 

"The  officer,"  he  reasoned,  "will  not 
make  that  martinet's  error  a  second  time. 
It  is  as  easy  to  dodge  a  volley  as  a  single 
shot.  He  has  probably  already  given  the 
command  to  fire  at  will.  God  help  me,  I 
cannot  dodge  them  all!  " 

An  appalling  plash  within  two  yards  of 
him,  followed  by  a  loud  rushing  sound,  dim- 
inuendo, which  seemed  to  travel  back  through 
the  air  to  the  fort  and  died  in  an  explosion 
which  stirred  the  very  river  to  its  deeps  !  A 
rising  sheet  of  water,  which  curved  over  him, 
fell  down  upon  him,  blinded  him,  strangled 
him!  The  cannon  had  taken  a  hand  in  the 
game,  As  he  shook  his  head  free  from  the 
commotion  of  the  smitten  water,  he  heard  the 
deflected  shot  humming  through  the  air 
ahead,  and  in  an  instant  it  was  cracking  and 
smashing  the  branches  in  the  forest  beyond. 

' '  They  will  not  do  that  again, ' '  he  thought ; 
' '  the  next  time  they  will  use  a  charge  of  grape. 
I  must  keep  my  eye  upon  the  gun;  the 
smoke  will  apprise  me — the  report  arrives  too 
late;  it  lags  behind  the  missile.  It  is  a  good 
gun." 

Suddenly  he  felt  himself  whirled  round 
and  round — spinning  like  a  top.  The  water, 
the  banks,  the  forest,  the  now  distant  bridge, 


36  AN  OCCURRENCE 

fort  and  men — all  were  commingled  and 
b1urred.  Objects  were  represented  by  their 
colors  only;  circular  horizontal  streaks  of 
color — that  was  all  he  saw.  He  had  been 
caught  in  a  vortex  and  was  being  whirled  on 
with  a  velocity  of  advance  and  gyration  which 
made  him  giddy  and  sick.  In  a  few  moments 
he  was  flung  upon  the  gravel  at  the  foot  of 
the  left  bank  of  the  stream — the  southern 
bank — and  behind  a  projecting  point  which 
concealed  him  from  his  enemies.  The  sud- 
den arrest  of  his  motion,  the  abrasion  of  one 
of  his  hands  on  the  gravel,  restored  him 
and  he  wept  with  delight.  He  dug  his  fin- 
gers into  the  sand,  threw  it  over  himself  in 
handfuls  and  audibly  blessed  it.  It  looked 
like  gold,  like  diamonds,  rubies,  emeralds; 
he  could  think  of  nothing  beautiful  which 
it  did  not  resemble.  The  trees  upon  the 
bank  were  giant  garden  plants;  he  noted  a 
definite  order  in  their  arrangement,  inhaled 
the  fragrance  of  their  blooms.  A  strange, 
roseate  light  shone  through  the  spaces  among 
their  trunks,  and  the  wind  made  in  their 
branches  the  music  of  aeolian  harps.  He 
had  no  wish  to  perfect  his  escape,  was  con- 
tent to  remain  in  that  enchanting  spot  until 
retaken. 


AT  OWL  CREEK  BRIDGE.  37 

A  whizz  and  rattle  of  grapeshot  among  the 
branches  high  above  his  head  roused  him 
from  his  dream.  The  baffled  cannoneer  had 
fired  him  a  random  farewell.  He  sprang  to 
his  feet,  rushed  up  the  sloping  bank,  and 
plunged  into  the  forest. 

All  that  day  he  traveled,  laying  his  course 
by  the  rounding  sun.  The  forest  seemed  in- 
terminable; nowhere  did  he  discover  a  break 
in  it,  not  even  a  woodman's  road.  He  had 
not  known  that  he  lived  in  so  wild  a  region. 
There  was  something  uncanny  in  the  revela- 
tion. 

By  nightfall  he  was  fatigued,  footsore,  fam- 
ishing. The  thought  of  his  wife  and  children 
urged  him  on.  At  last  he  found  a  road  which 
led  him  in  what  he  knew  to  be  the  right  di- 
rection. It  was  as  wide  and  straight  as  a  city 
street,  yet  it  seemed  untraveled.  No  fields 
bordered  it,  no  dwelling  anywhere.  Not  so 
much  as  the  barking  of  a  dog  suggested  hu- 
man habitation.  The  black  bodies  of  the 
great  trees  formed  a  straight  wall  on  both 
sides,  terminating  on  the  horizon  in  a  point, 
like  a  diagram  in  a  lesson  in  perspective. 
Overhead,  as  he  looked  up  through  this  rift 
in  the  wood,  shone  great  golden  stars  looking 
unfamiliar  and  grouped  in  strange  constella- 


38  AN  OCCURRENCE 

tions.  He  was  sure  they  were  arranged  in 
some  order  which  had  a  secret  and  malign 
significance.  The  wood  on  either  side  was 
full  of  singular  noises,  among  which — once, 
twice,  and  again — he  distinctly  heard  whispers 
in  an  unknown  tongue. 

His  neck  was  in  pain,  and,  lifting  his  hand 
to  it,  he  found  it  horribly  swollen.  He  knew 
that  it  had  a  circle  of  black  where  the  rope 
had  bruised  it.  His  eyes  felt  congested;  he 
could  no  longer  close  them.  His  tongue  was 
swollen  with  thirst;  he  relieved  its  fever  by 
thrusting  it  forward  from  between  his  teeth 
into  the  cool  air.  How  softly  the  turf  had 
carpeted  the  untraveled  avenue !  He  could 
no  longer  feel  the  roadway  beneath  his  feet! 

Doubtless,  despite  his  suffering,  he  fell 
asleep  while  walking,  for  now  he  sees  another 
scene — perhaps  he  has  merely  recovered 
from  a  delirium.  He  stands  at  the  gate  of 
his  own  home.  All  is  as  he  1  ft  it,  and  all 
bright  and  beautiful  in  the  morning  sunshine. 
He  must  have  traveled  the  entire  night.  As 
he  pushes  open  the  gate  and  passes  up  the 
wide  white  walk,  he  sees  a  flutter  of  female 
garments;  his  wife,  looking  fresh  and  cool  and 
sweet,  steps  down  from  the  veranda  to  meet 
him.  At  the  bottom  of  the  steps  she  stands 


AT  OWL  CREEK  BRIDGE.  39 

waiting,  with  a  smile  of  ineffable  joy,  an  atti- 
tude of  matchless  grace  and  dignity.  Ah, 
how  beautiful  she  is !  He  springs  forward  with 
extended  arms.  As  he  is  about  to  clasp  her, 
he  feels  a  stunning  blow  upon  the  back  of  the 
neck;  a  blinding  white  light  blazes  all  about 
him,  with  a  sound  like  the  shock  of  a  cannon 
— then  all  is  darkness  and  silence  ! 

Peyton  Farquhar  was  dead;  his  body,  with 
a  broken  neck,  swung  gently  from  side  to 
side  beneath  the  timbers  of  the  Owl  Creek 
bridge. 


CHICKAMAUGA. 


/^VNE  sunny  autumn  afternoon  a  child 
strayed  away  from  its  rude  home  in  a 
small  field  and  entered  a  forest  unobserved. 
It  was  happy  in  a  new  sense  of  freedom  from 
control — happy  in  the  opportunity  of  explora- 
tion and  adventure;  for  this  child's  spirit,  in 
bodies  of  its  ancestors,  had  for  many  thousands 
of  years  been  trained  to  memorable  feats  of 
discovery  and  conquest — victories  in  battles 
whose  crit'.cal  moments  were  centuries,  whose 
victors'  camps  were  cities  of  hewn  stone. 
From  the  cradle  of  its  race  it  had  conquered 
its  way  through  two  continents,  and,  passing 
a  great  sea,  had  penetrated  a  third,  there  to 
be  born  to  war  and  dominance  as  a  heritage. 
The  child  was  a  boy,  aged  about  six  years, 
the  son  of  a  poor  planter.  In  his  younger 
manhood  the  father  had  been  a  soldier,  had 
fought  against  naked  savages,  and  followed  the 
flag  of  his  country  into  the  capital  of  a  civil- 

(41) 


42  CHICK  A  MA  UGA . 

ized  race  to  the  far  South.  In  the  peaceful 
life  of  a  planter  the  warrior-fire  survived;  once 
kindled  it  is  never  extinguished.  The  man 
loved  military  books  and  pictures,  and  the 
boy  had  understood  enough  to  make  himself 
a  wooden  sword,  though  e\en  the  eye  of  his 
father  would  hardly  have  known  it  for  what 
it  was.  This  weapon  he  now  bore  bravely,  as 
became  the  son  of  an  heroic  race,  and,  pausing 
now  and  again  in  the  sunny  spaces  of  the  for- 
est, assumed,  with  some  exaggeration,  the 
postures  of  aggression  and  defense  that  he 
had  been  taught  by  the  engraver's  art.  Made 
reckless  by  the  ease  with  which  he  overcame 
invisible  foes  attempting  to  stay  his  advance, 
he  committed  the  common  enough  military 
error  of  pushing  the  pursuit  to  a  dangerous 
extreme,  until  he  found  himself  upon  the 
margin  of  a  wide  but  shallow  brook,  whose 
rapid  waters  barred  his  direct  advance  against 
the  flying  foe  who  had  crossed  with  illogical 
ease.  But  the  intrepid  victor  was  not  to  be 
baffled;  the  spirit  of  the  race  which  had 
passed  the  great  sea  burned  unconquerable  in 
that  small  breast  and  would  not  be  denied. 
Finding  a  place  where  some  bowlders  in  the 
bed  of  the  stream  lay  but  a  step  or  a  leap 
apart,  he  made  his  way  across  and  fell  again 


CHICKAMAUGA.  ^~ 

upon   the   rear  guard   of  his  imaginary  foe, 
putting  all  to  the  sword. 

Now  that  the  battle  had  been  won,  pru- 
dence required  that  he  withdraw  to  his  base 
of  operations.  Alas!  like  many  a  mightier 
conquerer,  and  like  one,  the  mightiest,  he 
could  not 

curb  the  lust  for  war, 

Nor  learn  that  tempted  Fate  will  leave  the  loftiest 
star. 

Advancing  from  the  bank  of  the  creek,  he 
suddenly  found  himself  confronted  with  a 
new  and  more  formidable  enemy;  in  the  path 
that  he  was  following,  bolt  upright,  with  ears 
erect  and  paws  suspended  before  it,  sat  a  rab- 
bit. With  a  startled  cry  the  child  turned  and 
fled,  he  knew  not  in  what  direction,  calling 
with  inarticulate  cries  for  his  mother,  weep- 
ing, stumbling,  his  tender  skin  cruelly  torn 
by  brambles,  his  little  heart  beating  hard  with 
terror — breathless,  blind  with  tears — lost  in 
the  forest!  Then,  for  more  than  an  hour,  he 
wandered  with  erring  feet  .through  the  tan- 
gled undergrowth,  till  at  last,  overcome  with 
fatigue,  he  lay  down  in  a  narrow  space  be- 
tween two  rocks,  within  a  few  yards  of  the 
stream,  and,  still  grasping  his  toy  sword,  no 
longer  a  weapon  but  a  companion,  sobbed 


.  .  CHICK  A  .If  A  VGA . 

himself  to  sleep.  The  wood  birds  sang  mer- 
rily above  his  head;  the  squirrels,  whisking 
their  bravery  of  tail,  ran  barking  from  tree  to 
tree,  unconscious  of  the  pity  of  it,  and  some- 
where far  away  was  a  strange,  muffled  thun- 
der, as  if  the  partridges  were  drumming  in 
celebration  of  nature's  victory  over  the  son 
of  her  immemorial  enslavers.  And  back  at 
the  little  plantation,  where  white  men  and 
black  were  hastily  searching  the  fields  and 
hedgerows  in  alarm,  a  mother's  heart  was 
breaking  for  her  missing  child. 

Hours  passed,  and  then  the  little  sleeper 
rose  to  his  feet.  The  chill  of  the  evening  was 
in  his  limbs,  the  fear  of  the  gloom  in  his 
heart.  But  he  had  rested,  and  he  no  longer 
wept.  With  some  blind  instinct  which  im- 
pelled to  action,  he  struggled  through  the 
undergrowth  about  him  and  came  to  a  more 
open  ground — on  his  right  the  brook,  to  the 
left  a  gentle  acclivity  studded  with  infrequent 
trees;  over  all  the  gathering  gloom  of  twi- 
light. A  thin,  ghostly  mist  rose  along  the 
water.  It  frightened  and  repelled  him;  in- 
stead of  recrossing,  in  the  direction  whence 
he  had  come,  he  turned  his  back  upon  it  and 
went  forward  toward  the  dark  inclosing 
wood.  Suddenly  he  saw  before  him  a 


CHICK  A  MA  UGA .  .  - 

strange  moving  object  which  he  took  to  be 
some  large  animal — a  dog,  a  pig — he  could 
not  name  it;  perhaps  it  was  a  bear.  He 
had  seen  pictures  of  bears,  but  knew  of  nothing 
to  their  discredit,  and  had  vaguely  wished  to 
meet  one.  But  something  in  form  or  move- 
ment of  this  object — something  in  the  awk- 
wardness of  its  approach — told  him  that  it  was 
not  a  bear,  and  curiosity  was  stayed  by  fear. 
He  stood  still,  and  as  it  came  slowly  on, 
gained  courage  every  moment,  for  he  saw 
that  at  least  it  had  not  the  long,  menacing 
ears  of  the  rabbit.  Possibly  his  impression- 
able mind  was  half  conscious  of  something 
familiar  in  its  shambling,  awkward  gait.  Be- 
fore it  had  approached  near  enough  to  resolve 
his  doubts,  he  saw  that  it  was  followed  by  an- 
other and  another.  To  right  and  to  left 
were  many  more;  the  whole  open  space  about 
him  was  alive  with  them — all  moving  forward 
toward  the  brook. 

They  were  men.  They  crept  upon  their 
hands  and  knees.  They  used  their  hands 
only,  dragging  their  legs.  They  used  their 
knees  only,  their  arms  hanging  useless  at 
their  sides.  They  strove  to  rise  to  their  feet, 
but  fell  prone  in  the  attempt.  They  did  noth- 
ing naturally,  and  nothing  alike,  save  only  to 


46 


CHICKAMAUGA. 


advance  foot  by  foot  in  the  same  direction. 
Singly,  in  pairs,  and  in  little  groups,  they 
came  on  through  the  gloom,  some  halting 
now  and  again  while  others  crept  slowly 
past  them,  then  resuming  their  movement. 
They  came  by  dozens  and  by  hundreds;  as 
far  on  either  hand  as  one  could  see  in  the 
deepening  gloom  they  extended,  and  the 
black  wood  behind  them  appeared  to  be  in- 
exhaustible. The  very  ground  seemed  in 
motion  toward  the  creek.  Occasionally  one 
who  had  paused  did  not  again  go  on,  but  lay 
motionless.  He  was  dead.  Some,  pausing, 
made  strange  gestures  with  their  hands, 
erected  their  arms  and  lowered  them  again, 
clasped  their  heads;  spread  their  palms  up- 
ward, as  men  are  sometimes  seen  to  do  in 
public  prayer. 

Not  all  of  this  did  the  child  note;  it  is  what 
would  have  been  noted  by  an  older  observer; 
he.  saw  little  but  that  these  were  men,  yet 
crept  like  babes.  Being  men,  they  were  not 
terrible,  though  some  of  them  were  unfamil- 
iarly  clad.  He  moved  among  them  freely, 
going  from  one  to  another  and  peering  into 
their  faces  with  childish  curiosity.  All  their 
faces  were  singularly  white  and  many  were 
streaked  and  gouted  with  red.  Something  in 


CHICKAMAUGA.  ^ 

this — something  too,  perhaps,  in  their  gro- 
tesque attitudes  and  movements —  eminded 
him  of  the  painted  clown  whom  he  had  seen 
last  summer  in  the  circus,  and  he  laughed  as 
he  watched  them.  But  on  and  ever  on  they 
crept,  these  maimed  and  bleeding  men,  as 
heedless  as  he  of  the  dramatic  contrast  be- 
tween his  laughter  and  their  own  ghastly 
gravity.  To  him  it  was  a  merry  spectacle. 
He  had  seen  his  father's  negroes  creep  upon 
their  hands  and  knees  for  his  amusement — 
had  ridden  them  so,  "making  believe"  they 
were  his  horses.  He  now  approached  one  of 
these  crawling  figures  from  behind  and  with 
an  agile  movement  mounted  it  astride.  The 
man  sank  upon  his  breast,  recovered,  flung 
the  small  boy  fiercely  to  the  ground  as  an  un- 
broken colt  might  have  done,  then  turned 
upon  him  a  face  that  lacked  a  lower  jaw— 
from  the  upper  teeth  to  the  throat  was  a  great 
red  gap  fringed  with  hanging  shreds  of  flesh 
and  splinters  of  bone.  The  unnatural  prom- 
inence of  nose,  the  absence  of  chin,  the 
fierce  eyes,  gave  this  man  the  appearance  of 
a  great  bird  of  prey  crimsoned  in  throat  and 
breast  by  the  blood  of  its  quarry.  The  man 
rose  to  his  knees,  the  child  to  his  feet.  The 
man  shook  his  fist  at  the  child;  the  child, 


48 


CHICKAMAl'GA. 


terrified  at  last,  ran  to  a  tree  near  by,  got 
upon  the  farther  side  of  it,  and  took  a  more 
serious  view  of  the  situation.  And  so  the 
uncanny  multitude  dragged  itself  slowly  and 
painfully  along  in  hideous  pantomime — 
moved  forward  down  the  slope  like  a  swarm 
of  great  black  beetles,  with  never  a  sound  of 
going — in  silence  profound,  absolute. 

Instead  of  darkening,  the  haunted  land- 
scape began  to  brighten.  Through  the  belt 
of  trees  beyond  the  brook  shone  a  strange 
red  light,  the  trunks  and  branches  of  the 
trees  making  a  black  lacework  against  it. 
It  struck  the  creeping  figures  and  gave  them 
monstrous  shadows,  which  caricatured  their 
movements  on  the  lit  grass.  It  fell  upon 
their  faces,  touching  their  whiteness  with 
a  ruddy  tinge,  accentuating  the  stains  with 
which  so  many  of  them  were  freaked  and 
maculated.  It  sparkled  on  buttons  and  bits 
of  metal  in  their  clothing.  Instinctively  the 
child  turned  toward  the  growing  splendor 
and  moved  down  the  slope  with  his  horrible 
companions;  in  a  few  moments  had  passed 
the  foremost  of  the  throng — not  much  of  a 
feat,  considering  his  advantages.  He  placed 
himself  in  the  lead,  his  wooden  sword  still  in 
hand,  and  solemnly  directed  the  march,  con- 


CHICK  AM  ATG  A. 


forming  his  pace  to  theirs  and  occasionally 
turning  as  if  to  see  that  his  forces  did  not 
straggle.  Surely  such  a  leader  never  before 
had  such  a  following. 

Scattered  about  upon  the  ground  now 
slowly  narrowing  by  the  encroachment  of 
this  awful  march  to  water,  were  certain  arti- 
cles to  which,  in  the  leader's  mind,  were 
coupled  no  significant  associations;  an  oc- 
casional blanket,  tightly  rolled  lengthwise, 
doubled  and  the  ends  bound  together  with  a 
string;  a  heavy  knapsack  here,  and  there  a 
broken  musket — such  things,  in  short,  as  are 
found  in  the  rear  of  retreating  troops,  the 
"spoor"  of  men  flying  from  their  hunters. 
Everywhere  near  the  creek,  which  here  had 
a  margin  of  lowland,  the  earth  was  trodden 
into  mud  by  the  feet  of  men  and  horses.  An 
observer  of  better  experience  in  the  use  of 
his  eyes  would  have  noticed  that  these  foot- 
prints pointed  in  both  directions;  the  ground 
had  been  twice  passed  over — in  advance  and 
in  retreat.  A  few  hours  before,  these  desper- 
ate, stricken  men,  with  their  more  fortunate 
and  now  distant  comrades,  had  penetrated 
the  forest  in  thousands.  Their  successive 
battalions,  breaking  into  swarms  and  reform- 
ing in  lines,  had  passed  the  child  on  every 

4 


cj0  CHICKAMAUGA. 

side — had  almost  trodden  on  him  as  he  slept. 
The  rustle  and  murmur  of  their  march  had 
npt  awakened  him.  Almost  within  a  stone's 
throw  of  where  he  lay  they  had  fought  a 
battle;  but  all  unheard  by  him  were  the  roar 
of  the  musketry,  the  shock  of  the  cannon, 
"the  thunder  of  the  captains  and  the  shout- 
ing." He  had  slept  through  it  all,  grasping 
his  little  wooden  sword  with  perhaps  a  tighter 
clutch  in  unconscious  sympathy  with  his 
martial  environment,  but  as  heedless  of  the 
grandeur  of  the  struggle  as  the  dead  who 
died  to  make  the  glory. 

The  fire  beyond  the  belt  of  woods  on  the 
farther  side  of  the  creek,  reflected  to  earth 
from  the  canopy  of  its  own  smoke,  was  now 
suffusing  the  whole  landscape.  It  trans- 
formed the  sinuous  line  of  mist  to  the  vapor 
of  gold.  The  water  gleamed  with  dashes  of 
red,  and  red,  too,  were  many  of  the  stones 
protruding  above  the  surface.  But  that  was 
blood;  the  less  desperately  wounded  had 
stained  them  in  crossing.  On  them,  too, 
the  child  now  crossed  with  eager  steps;  he 
was  going  to  the  fire.  As  he  stood  upon  the 
farther  bank,  he  turned  about  to  look  at  the 
companions  of  his  march.  The  advance  was 
arriving  at  the  creek.  The  stronger  had  al- 


CHICKAMAUGA.  ^ 

ready  drawn  themselves  to  the  brink  and 
plunged  their  faces  in  the  flood.  Three  or 
four  who  lay  without  motion  appeared  to 
have  no  heads.  At  this  the  child's  eyes  ex- 
panded with  wonder;  even  his  hospitable  un- 
derstanding could  riot  accept  a  phenomenon 
implying  such  vitality  as  that.  After  slaking 
their  thirst  these  men  had  not  the  strength 
to  back  away  from  the  water,  nor  to  keep 
their  heads  above  it.  They  were  drowned. 
In  rear  of  these  the  open  spaces  of  the  forest 
showed  the  leader  as  many  formless  figures 
of  his  grim  command  as  at  first;  but  not 
nearly  so  many  were  in  motion.  He  waved 
his  cap  for  their  encouragement  and  smilingly 
pointed  with  his  weapon  in  the  direction  of 
the  guiding  light — a  pillar  of  fire  to  this 
strange  exodus. 

Confident  of  the  fidelity  of  his  forces,  he 
now  entered  the  belt  of  woods,  passed  through 
it  easily  in  the  red  illumination,  climbed  a 
fence,  ran  across  a  field,  turning  now  and 
again  to  coquette  with  his  responsive  shadow, 
and  so  approached  the  blazing  ruin  of  a 
dwelling.  Desolation  everywhere.  In  all 
the  wide  glare  not  a  living  thing  was  visible. 
He  cared  nothing  for  that;  the  spectacle 
pleased,  and  he  danced  with  glee  in  imita- 


5  2  CHICKAMAUGA. 

tion  of  the  wavering  flames.  He  ran  about 
collecting  fuel,  but  every  object  that  he  found 
was  too  heavy  for  him  to  cast  in  from  the 
distance  to  which  the  heat  limited  his  ap- 
proach. In  despair  he  flung  in  his  sword — a 
surrender  to  the  superior  forces  of  nature. 
His  military  career  was  at  an  end. 

Shifting  his  position,  his  eyes  fell  upon 
some  outbuildings  which  had  an  oddly  famil- 
iar appearance,  as  if  he  had  dreamed  of  them. 
He  stood  considering  them  with  wonder, 
when  suddenly  the  entire  plantation,  with  its 
inclosing  forest,  seemed  to  turn  as  if  upon  a 
pivot.  His  little  world  swung  half  around; 
the  points  of  the  compass  were  reversed. 
He  recognized  the  blazing  building  as  his 
own  home! 

For  a  moment  he  stood  stupefied  by  the 
power  of  the  revelation,  then  ran  with  stum- 
bling feet,  making  a  half  circuit  of  the  ruin. 
There,  conspicuous  in  the  light  of  the  con- 
flagration, lay  the  dead  body  of  a  woman — 
the  white  face  turned  upward,  the  hands 
thrown  out  and  clutched  full  of  grass,  the 
clothing  deranged,  the  long  dark  hair  in 
tangles  and  full  of  clotted  blood.  The  greater 
part  of  the  forehead  was  torn  away,  and  from 
the  jagged  hole  the  brain  protruded,  over- 


CHICK  A  MA  VGA .  c  * 

flowing  the  temple,  a  frothy  mass  of  gray, 
crowned  with  clusters  of  crimson  bubbles—- 
the work  of  a  shell ! 

The  child  moved  his  little  hands,  making 
wild,  uncertain  gestures.  He  uttered  a  series 
of  inarticulate  and  indescribable  cries — some- 
thing between  the  chattering  of  an  ape  and 
the  gobbling  of  a  turkey — a  startling,  soul- 
less, unholy  sound,  the  language  of  a  devil. 
The  child  was  a  deaf  mute. 

Then  he  stood  motionless,  with  quivering 
lips,  looking  down  upon  the  wreck. 


A  SON   OF  THE   GODS. 


A   STUDY  IN  THE  HISTORICAL  PRESENT  TENSE. 

A  BREEZY  day  and  a  sunny  landscape,, 
An  open  country  to  right  and  left  and 
forward;  behind,  a  wood.  In  the  edge  of  this 
wood,  facing  the  open  but  not  venturing  into 
it,  long  lines  of  troops  halted.  The  wood  is 
alive  with  thems  and  full  of  confused  noises 
— the  occasional  rattle  of  wheels  as  a  battery 
of  artillery  gets  into  position  to  cover  the  ad- 
vance; the  hum  and  murmur  of  the  soldiers 
talking;  a  sound  of  innumerable  feet  in  the 
dry  leaves  that  strew  the  interspaces  among 
the  trees;  hoarse  commands  of  officers.  De- 
tached groups  of  horsemen  are  well  in  front 
— not  altogether  exposed — many  of  them  in- 
tently regarding  the  crest  of  a  hill  a  mile 
away  in  the  direction  of  the  interrupted  ad- 
vance. For  this  powerful  army,  moving  in 
battle  order  through  a  forest,  has  met  with  a 
formidable  obstacle — the  open  country.  The 

(55) 


56  A  SON  OF  THE  GODS 

crest  of  that  gentle  hill  a  mile  away  has  a 
sinister  look;  it  says,  Beware!  Along  it  runs 
a  stone  wall  extending  to  left  and  right  a 
great  distance.  Behind  the  wall  is  a  hedge; 
behind  the  hedge  are  seen  the  tops  of  trees 
in  rather  straggling  order.  Behind  the  trees 
—what?  It  is  necessary  to  know. 

Yesterday,  and  for  many  days  and  nights 
previously,  we  were  fighting  somewhere; 
always  there  was  cannonading,  with  occa 
sional  keen  rattlings  of  musketry,  mingled 
with  cheers,  our  own  or  the  enemy's,  we 
seldom  knew,  attesting  some  temporary  ad- 
vantage. This  morning  at  daybreak  the  en- 
emy was  goneo  We  have  moved  forward 
across  his  earthworks,  across  which  we  have 
so  often  vainly  attempted  to  move  before, 
through  the  de'bris  of  his  abandoned  camps, 
among  the  graves  of  his  fallen,  into  the 
woods  beyond. 

How  curiously  we  regarded  everything,1 
how  odd  it  all  seemed!  Nothing  appeared 
quite  familiar;  the  most  commonplace  ob- 
jects— an  old  saddle,  a  splintered  wheel,  a 
forgotten  canteen — everything  related  some- 
thing of  the  mysterious  personality  of  those 
strange  men  who  had  been  killing  us.  The 
soldier  never  becomes  wholly  familiar  with 


A  SOW  OF  THE  GODS.  57 

the  conception  of  his  foes  as  men  like  him- 
self; he  cannot  divest  himself  of  the  feeling 
that  they  are  another  order  of  beings,  differ- 
ently conditioned,  in  an  environment  not  al- 
together of  the  earth.  The  smallest  vestiges 
of  them  rivet  his  attention  and  engage  his 
interest.  He  thinks  of  them  as  inaccessible; 
and,  catching  an  unexpected  glimpse  of  them, 
they  appear  farther  away,  and  therefore  larger 
than  they  really  are — like  objects  in  a  fog. 
He  is  somewhat  in  awe  of  them= 

From  the  edge  of  the  wood  leading  up  the 
acclivity  are  the  tracks  of  horses  and  wheels — 
the  wheels  of  cannon.  The  yellow  grass  is 
beaten  down  by  the  feet  of  infantry.  Clearly 
they  have  passed  this  way  in  thousands;  they 
have  not  withdrawn  by  the  country  roads. 
This  is  significant — it  is  the  difference  be- 
tween retiring  and  retreating  „ 

That  group  of  horsemen  is  our  com- 
mander, his  staff  and  escort.  He  is  facing  the 
distant  crest,  holding  his  field  glass  against 
his  eyes  with  both  hands,  his  elbows  need- 
lessly elevated;  it  is  a  fashion;  it  seems  to 
dignify  the  act;  we  are  all  addicted  to  it. 
Suddenly  he  lowers  the  glass  and  says  a  few 
words  to  those  about  him0  Two  or  three 
aides  detach  themselves  from  the  group  and 


5  8  A  SON  OF  THE  GODS. 

canter  away  into  the  woods,  along  the  lines 
in  each  direction.  We  did  not  hear  his 
words  but  we  know  them:  "Tell  General  X. 
to  send  forward  the  skirmish  line. ' '  Those  of 
us  who  have  been  out  of  place  resume  our  po- 
sitions; the  men  resting  at  ease  straighten 
themselves,  and  the  ranks  are  re-formed  with- 
out a  command.  Some  of  us  staff  officers 
dismount  and  look  at  our  saddle  girths;  those 
already  on  the  ground  remount. 

Galloping  rapidly  along  in  the  edge  of  the 
open  ground  comes  a  young  officer  on  a 
snow-white  horse.  His  saddle  blanket  is 
scarlet.  What  a  fool!  No  one  who  has  ever 
been  in  battle  but  remembers  how  naturally 
every  rifle  turns  toward  the  man  on  a  white 
horse;  no  one  but  has  observed  how  a  bit  of 
red  enrages  the  bull  of  battle.  That  such 
colors  are  fashionable  in  military  life  must  be 
accepted  as  the  most  astonishing  of  all  the 
phenomena  of  human  vanity.  They  would 
seem  to  have  been  devised  to  increase  the 
death  rate 

This  young  officer  is  in  full  uniform,  as  if 
on  parade.  He  is  all  agleam  with  bullion — a 
blue-and-gold  edition  of  the  Poetry  of  War, 
A  wave  of  derisive  laughter  runs  abreast  of 
him  all  along  the  line.  But  how  handsome 


A  SON  OF  THE  GODS  50 

he  is!  with  what  careless  grace  he  sits  upon 
his  horse  I 

He  reins  up  within  a  respectful  distance 
of  the  corps  commander  and  salutes.  The 
old  soldier  nods  familiarly;  he  evidently 
knows  him.  A  brief  colloquy  between  them 
is  going  on;  the  young  man  seems  to  be 
preferring  some  request  which  the  elder  one 
is  indisposed  to  grant.  Let  us  ride  a  little 
nearer.  Ah!  too  late — it  is  ended.  The 
young  officer  salutes  again,  wheels  his  horse, 
and  rides  straight  toward  the  crest  of  the  hill. 
He  is  deathly  pale. 

A  thin  line  of  skirmishers,  the  men  de- 
ployed at  six  paces  or  so  apart,  now  pushes 
from  the  wood  into  the  open.  The  com- 
mander speaks  to  his  bugler,  who  claps  his 
instrument  to  his  lips.  Tra-la-la!  Tra-la-la! 
The  skirmishers  halt  in  their  tracks 

Meantime  the  young  horseman  has  ad- 
vanced a  hundred  yards.  He  is  riding  at  a 
walk,  straight  up  the  long  slope,  with  never 
a  turn  of  the  head.  How  glorious!  Gods! 
what  would  we  not  give  to  be  in  his  place — " 
with  his  soul!  He  does  not  draw  his  saber; 
his  right  hand  hangs  easily  at  his  side.  The 
breeze  catches  the  plume  in  his  hat  and  flut- 
ters it  smartly.  The  sunshine  rests  upon  his 


6O  A  SON  OF  THE  GODS. 

shoulder  straps,  lovingly,  like  a  visible  bene- 
diction. Straight  on  he  rides.  Ten  thousand 
pairs  of  eyes  are  fixed  upon  him  with  an  in- 
tensity that  he  can  hardly  fail  to  feel;  ten 
thousand  hearts  keep  quick  time  to  the  in- 
audible hoof  beats  of  his  snowy  steed.  He  is 
not  alone — he  draws  all  souls  after  him;  we 
are  but  "dead  men  all."  But  we  remember 
that  we  laughed  !  On  and  on,  straight  for  the 
hedge  lined  wall,  he  rides.  Not  a  look  back- 
ward. Oh,  if  he  would  but  turn — if  he  could 
but  see  the  love,  the  adoration,  the  atonement! 
Not  a  word  is  spoken;  the  populous  depths 
of  the  forest  still  murmur  with  their  unseen 
and  unseeing  swarm,  but  all  along  the  fringe 
there  is  silence  absolute.  The  burly  com- 
mander is  an  equestrian  statue  of  himself. 
The  mounted  staff  officers,  their  field  glasses 
up,  are  motionless  all.  The  line  of  battle  in 
the  edge  of  the  wood  stands  at  a  new  kind  of 
"attention,"  each  man  in  the  attitude  in 
which  he  was  caught  by  the  consciousness  of 
what  is  going  on.  All  these  hardened  and 
impenitent  man  killers,  to  whom  death  in  its 
awfulest  forms  is  a  fact  familiar  to  their  every- 
day observation;  who  sleep  on  hills  trem- 
bling with  the  thunder  of  great  guns,  dine  in 
the  midst  of  streaming  missiles,  and  play  at 


A  SON  OF  THE  GODS.  6 1 

cards  among  the  dead  faces  of  their  dearest 
friends — all  are  watching  with  suspended 
breath  and  beating  hearts  the  outcome  of  an 
act  involving  the  life  of  one  man.  Such  is 
the  magnetism  of  courage  and  devotion. 

If  now  you  should  turn  your  head,  you 
would  see  a  simultaneous  movement  among 
the  spectators  — a  start,  as  if  it  had  received  an 
electric  shock — and  looking  forward  again  to 
the  now  distant  horseman  you  would  see  that 
he  has  in  that  instant  altered  his  direction 
and  is  riding  at.  an  angle  to  his  former  course* 
The  spectators  suppose  the  sudden  deflec- 
tion to  be  caused  by  a  shot,  perhaps  a  wound; 
but  take  this  field  glass  and  you  will  observe, 
that  he  is  riding  towards  a  break  in  the  wall 
and  hedge.  He  means,  if  not  killed,  to  ride 
through  and  overlook  the  country  beyondo 

You  are  not  to  forget  the  nature  of  this 
man's  act;  it  is  not  permitted  to  you  to  think 
of  it  as  an  instance  of  bravado,  nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  needless  sacrifice  of  self.  If 
the  enemy  has  not  retreated  he  is  in  force  on 
that  ridge.  The  investigator  will  encountei 
nothing  less  t^an  a  line  of  battle;  there  is  no 
need  of  pickets,  videttes,  skirmishers,  to  give 
warning  of  our  approach;  our  attacking  lines 
will  be  visible,  conspicuous,  exposed  to  an 


6?  A  SON  OF  THE  GODS 

artillery  lire  that  will  shave  the  ground  the 
moment  they  break  from  cover,  and  for  half 
the  distance  to  a  sheet  of  rifle  bullets  in  which 
nothing  can  live.  In  short,  if  the  enemy  is 
there,  it  would  be  madness  to  attack  him  in 
front;  he  must  be  manceuvered  out  by  the  im- 
memorial plan  of  threatening  his  line  of  com- 
munication, as  necessary  to  his  existence  as, 
to  the  diver  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  his  air 
tube.  But  how  ascertain  if  the  enemy  is  there? 
There  is  but  one  way, — somebody  must  go 
and  see.  The  natural  and  customary  thing 
to  do  is  to  send  forward  a  line  of  skirmishers. 
But  in  this  case  they  will  answer  in  the  affirm- 
ative with  all  their  lives;  the  enemy,  crouch- 
ing in  double  ranks  behind  the  stone  wall 
and  in  cover  of  the  hedge,  will  wait  until  it  is 
possible  to  count  each  assailant's  teeth.  At% 
the  first  volley  a  half  of  the  questioning  line 
will  fall,  the  other  half  before  it  can  accom- 
plish the  predestined  retreat.  What  a  price 
to  pay  for  gratified  curiosity !  At  what  a  dear 
rate  an  army  must  sometimes  purchase  knowl- 
edge! "Let  me  pay  all,"  says  this  gallant 
man — this  military  Christ! 

There  is  no  hope  except  the  hope  against 
hope  that  the  crest  is  clear.  True,  he  might 
prefer  capture  to  death.  So  long  as  he  ad> 


A  SON  OF  THE  GODS,  63 

vances  the  line  will  not  fire — why  should  it  ? 
He  can  safely  ride  into  the  hostile  ranks  and 
become  a  prisoner  of  war.  But  this  would 
defeat  his  object.  It  would  not  answer  our 
question;  it  is  necessary  either  that  he  return 
unharmed  or  be  shot  to  death  before  our 
eyes.  Only  so  shall  we  know  how  to  act.  If 
captured — why,  that  might  have  been  done 
by  a  half  dozen  stragglers. 

Now  begins  an  extraordinary  contest  of  in- 
tellect between  a  man  and  an  army.  Our 
horseman,  now  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of 
the  crest,  suddenly  wheels  to  the  left  and  gal- 
lops in  a  direction  parallel  to  it.  He  has 
caught  sight  of  his  antagonist;  he  knows  all. 
Some  slight  advantage  of  ground  has  enabled 
him  to  overlook  a  part  of  the  line.  If  he 
were  here,  he  could  tell  us  in  words.  But  that 
is  now  hopeless;  he  must  make  the  best  use 
of  the  few  minutes  of  life  remaining  to  him, 
by  compelling  the  enemy  himself  to  tell  us  as 
much  and  as  plainly  as  possible — which,  nat- 
urally, that  discreet  power  is  reluctant  to  do. 
Not  a  rifleman  in  those  crouching  ranks,  not 
a  cannoneer  at  those  masked  and  shotted 
guns,  but  knows  the  needs  of  the  situation, 
the  imperative  duty  of  forbearance.  Besides, 
there  has  been  time  enough  to  forbid  them 


54  ^  SO*V  OF  TH&  GODS. 

all  to  fire.  True,  a  single  rifle  shot  might 
drop  him  and  be  no  great  disclosure.  But 
firing  is  infectious — and  see  how  rapidly  he 
moves,  with  never  a  pause  except  as  he 
whirls  his  horse  about  to  take  a  new  direction, 
never  directly  backward  toward  us,  never  di- 
rectly forward  toward  his  executioners.  All 
this  is  visible  through  the  glass;  it  seems 
occurring  within  pistol  shot;  we  see  all  but 
the  enemy,  whose  presence,  whose  thoughts, 
whose  motives  we  infer.  To  the  unaided  eye 
there  is  nothing  but  a  black  figure  on  a  white 
horse,  tracing  slow  zigzags  against  the  slope 
of  a  distant  hill — so  slowly  they  seem  almost 
to  creep. 

Now — the  glass  again — he  has  tired  of  his 
failure,  or  sees  his  error,  or  has  gone  mad; 
he  is  dashing  directly  forward  at  the  wall,  as 
if  to  take  it  at  a  leap,  hedge  and  all!  One 
moment  only  and  he  wheels  right  about  and 
is  speeding  like  the  wind  straight  down  the 
slope — toward  his  friends,  toward  his  death! 
Instantly  the  wall  is  topped  with  a  fierce  roll 
of  smoke  for  a  distance  of  hundreds  of  yards 
to  right  and  left.  This  is  as  instantly  dissi- 
pated by  the  wind,  and  before  the  rattle  of 
the  rifles  reaches  us,  he  is  down.  No,  he 
recovers  his  seat;  he  has  but  pulled  h\s  horse 


A  SOX  OF  THE  GODS. 


lipon  its  haunches.  They  are  up  and  away! 
A  tremendous  cheer  bursts  from  our  ranks, 
relieving  the  insupportable  tension  of  our 
feelings.  And  the  horse  and  its  rider?  Yes, 
they  are  up  and  away.  Away,  indeed  —  they 
are  making  directly  to  our  left,  parallel  to 
the  now  steadily  blazing  and  smoking  wall. 
The  rattle  of  the  musketry  is  continuous,  and 
every  bullet's  target  is  that  courageous  heart. 

Suddenly  a  great  bank  of  white  smoke 
pushes  upward  from  behind  the  wall.  An- 
other and  another  —  a  dozen  roll  up  before 
the  thunder  of  the  explosions  and  the  hum- 
ming of  the  missiles  reach  our  ears,  and  the 
missiles  themselves  come  bounding  through 
clouds  of  dust  into  our  covert,  knocking  over 
here  and  there  a  man  and  causing  a  tempo- 
rary distraction,  a  passing  thought  of  self. 

The  dust  drifts  away.  Incredible!  —  that 
enchanted  horse  and  rider  have  passed  a 
ravine  and  are  climbing  another  slope  to  un- 
veil another  conspiracy  of  silence,  to  thwart 
the  will  of  another  armed  host.  Another  mo- 
ment and  that  crest  too  is  in  eruption.  The 
horse  rears  and  strikes  the  air  with  its  fore- 
feet. They  are  down  at  last.  But  look 
again  —  the  man  has  detached  himself  from 
the  dead  animal.  He  stands  erect,  motion- 


66 

less,  holding  his  saber  in  his  right  hand 
straight  above  his  head.  His  face  is  to  the 
enemy.  Now  he  lowers  his  hand  to  a  level 
with  his  face,  moves  it  outward,  the  blade  of 
the  saber  describing  a  downward  curve.  It 
is  a  sign  to  the  enemy,  to  us,  to  the  world,  to 
posterity.  It  is  a  hero's  salute  to  death  and 
history. 

Again  the  spell  is  broken;  our  men  attempt 
to  cheer;  they  are  choking  with  emotion; 
they  utter  hoarse,  discordant  cries;  they 
clutch  their  weapons  and  press  tumultuously 
forward  into  the  open.  The  skirmishers, 
without  orders,  against  orders,  are  going  for- 
ward at  a  keen  run,  like  hounds  unleashed. 
Our  cannon  speak  and  the  enemy's  now  open 
in  full  chorus,  to  right  and  left  as  far  as  we 
can  see;  the  distant  crest,  seeming  now  so 
near,  erects  its  towers  of  cloud,  and  the  great 
shot  pitch  roaring  down  among  our  moving 
masses.  Flag  after  flag  of  ours  emerges  from 
the  wood,  line  after  line  sweeps  forth,  catch- 
ing the  sunlight  on  its  burnished  arms.  The 
rear  battalions  alone  are  in  obedience;  they 
preserve  their  proper  distance  from  the  insur- 
gent front. 

The  commander  has  not  moved.      He  now 
removes  his   field   glass   from    his    eyes    and 


A  .V().V  <>/•'   '/7//-:  GODS.  5  7 

glances  to  the  right  and  left.  He  sees  the 
human  current  flowing  on  either  side  of  him 
and  his  huddled  escort,  like  tide  waves  parted 
by  a  rock.  Not  a  sign  of  feeling  in  his  face; 
he  is  thinking.  Again  he  directs  his  eyes 
forward;  they  slowly  traverse  that  malign  and 
awful  crest.  He  addresses  a  calm  word  to  his 
bugler.  Tra-la-la!  Tra-la-la!  The  injunc- 
tion has  an  imperiousness  which  enforces  it. 
It  is  repeated  by  all  the  bugles  of  all  the 
subordinate  commanders;  the  sharp  metallic 
notes  assert  themselves  above  the  hum  of  the 
advance,  and  penetrate  the  sound  of  the  can- 
non. To  halt  is  to  withdraw.  The  colors 
move  slowly  back;  the  lines  face  about  and 
sullenly  follow,  bearing  their  wounded;  the 
skirmishers  return,  gathering  up  the  dead. 

Ah,  those  many,  many  needless  dead!  That 
great  soul  whose  beautiful  body  is  lying  over 
yonder,  so  conspicuous  against  the  sere  hill- 
side— could  it  not  have  been  spared  the  bitter 
consciousness  of  a  vain  devotion?  Would 
one  exception  have  marred  too  much  the 
pitiless  perfection  of  the  divine,  eternal  plan? 


ONE  OF  THE  MISSING. 

JEROME  SEARING,  a  private  soldier  of 
General  Sherman's  army,  then  confront- 
ing the  enemy  at  and  about  Kenesaw  Mount- 
ain, Georgia,  turned  his  back  upon  a  small 
group  of  officers,  with  whom  he  had  been  talk- 
ing in  low  tones,  stepped  across  a  light  line 
of  earthworks,  and  disappeared  in  a  forest. 
None  of  the  men  in  line  behind  the  works  had 
said  a  word  to  him,  nor  had  he  so  much  as 
nodded  to  them  in  passing,  but  all  who  saw 
understood  that  this  brave  man  had  been  in- 
trusted with  some  perilous  duty.  Jerome 
Searing,  though  a  private,  did  not  serve  in  the 
ranks;  he  was  detailed  for  service  at  division 
headquarters,  being  borne  upon  the  rolls  as 
an  orderly.  ' '  Orderly  "  is  a  word  covering  a 
multitude  of  duties.  An  orderly  may  be  a 
messenger,  a  clerk,  an  officer's  servant — any- 
thing. He  may  perform  services  for  which 
no  provision  is  made  in  orders  and  army  reg- 
ulations. Their  nature  may  depend  upon  his 

(69) 


yO  ONE  OF  THE  MISSING. 

aptitude,  upon  favor,  upon  accident.  Private 
Searing,  an  incomparable  marksman,  young 
— it  is  surprising  how  young  we  all  were  in 
those  days — hardy,  intelligent,  and  insensible 
to  fear,  was  a  scout.  The  general  command- 
ing his  division  was  not  content  to  obey  orders 
blindly  without  knowing  what  was  in  his  front, 
even  when  his  command  was  not  on  detached 
service,  but  formed  a  fraction  of  the  line  of 
the  army;  nor  was  he  satisfied  to  receive  his 
knowledge  of  his  vis-a-vis  through  the  cus- 
tomary channels;  he  wanted  to  know  more 
than  he  was  apprised  of  by  the  corps  com- 
mander and  the  collisions  of  pickets  and  skir- 
mishers. Hence  Jerome  Searing — with  his 
extraordinary  daring,  his  woodcraft,  his  sharp 
eyes  and  truthful  tongue.  On  this  occasion 
his  instructions  were  simple:  to  get  as  near 
the  enemy's  lines  as  possible  and  learn  all 
that  he  could. 

In  a  few  moments  he  had  arrived  at  the 
picket  line,  the  men  on  duty  there  lying  in 
groups  of  from  two  to  four  behind  little  banks 
of  earth  scooped  out  of  the  slight  depression 
in  which  they  lay,  their  rifles  protruding  from 
the  green  boughs  with  which  they  had  masked 
their  small  defenses.  The  forest  extended 
without  a  break  toward  the  front,  so  solemn 


ONE  OF  THE  MISSING.  yj 

and  silent  that  only  by  an  effort  of  the  imagi- 
nation could  it  be  conceived  as  populous  with 
armed  men,  alert  and  vigilant^a  forest  for- 
midable with  possibilities  of  battle.'  Pausing  a 
moment  in  one  of  these  rifle  pits  to  apprise 
the  men  of  his  intention,  Searing  crept  stealth- 
ily forward  on  his  hands  and  knees  and  was 
soon  lost  to  view  in  a  dense  thicket  of  under- 
brush. 

"That  is  the  last  of  him,"  said  one  of  the 
men;  "I  wish  I  had  his  rifle;  those  fellows 
will  hurt  some  of  us  with  it." 

Searing  crept  on,  taking  advantage  of  every 
accident  of  ground  and  growth  to  give  him- 
self better  cover.  His  eyes  penetrated  every- 
where, his  ears  took  note  of  every  sound. 
He  stilled  his  breathing,  and  at  the  cracking 
of  a  twig  beneath  his  knee  stopped  his  prog- 
ress and  hugged  the  earth.  It  was  slow  work 
but  not  tedious;  the  danger  made  it  exciting, 
but  by  no  physical  signs  was  the  excitement 
manifest.  His  pulse  was  as  regular,  his  nerves 
were  as  steady,  as  if  he  were  trying  to  trap  a 
sparrow. 

"  It  seems  a  long  time,"  he  thought,  "but 
I  cannot  have  come  very  far;  I  am  still  alive." 

He  smiled  at  his  own  method  of  estimating 
distance,  and  crept  forward.  A  moment  later 


OF  THE    - 


he  suddenly  flattened  himself  upon  the  earth 
and  lay  motionless,  minute  after  minute. 
Through  a  narrow  opening-  in  the  bushes  he 
had  caught  sight  of  a  small  mound  of  yellow 
clay — one  of  the  enemy's  rifle  pits.  After 
some  little  time  he  cautiously  raised  his  head, 
inch  by  inch,  then  his  body  upon  his  hands, 
spread  out  on  each  side  of  him,  all  the  while 
intently'  regarding  the  hillock  of  clay.  In 
another  moment  he  was  upon  his  feet,  rifle  in 
hand,  striding  rapidly  forward  with  little  at- 
tempt at  concealment.  He  had  rightly  inter- 
preted the  signs,  whatever  they  were;  the 
enemy  was  gone. 

To  assure  himself  beyond  a  doubt  before 
going  back  to  report  upon  so  important  a 
'matter,  Searing  pushed  forward  across  the 
line  of  abandoned  pits,  running  from  cover  to 
cover  in  the  more  open  forest,  his  eyes  vigi- 
lant to  discover  possible  stragglers.  He  came 
to  the  edge  of  a  plantation — one  of  those  for- 
lorn, deserted  homesteads  of  the  last  years  of 
the  war,  upgrown  with  brambles,  ugly  with 
broken  fences,  and  desolate  with  vacant  build- 
ings having  blank  apertures  in  place  of  doors 
and  windows.  After  a  keen  reconnoissance 
from  the  safe  seclusion  of  a  clump  of  young 
pines,  Searing  ran  lightly  across  a,  field  ancl 


OXE  OF  THE  MISSIXG.  y-i 

through  an  orchard  to  a  small  structure  which 
stood  apart  from  the  other  farm  buildings,  on 
a  slight  elevation,  which  he  thought  would 
enable  him  to  overlook  a  large  scope  of  coun- 
try in  the  direction  that  he  supposed  the  en- 
emy to  have  taken  in  withdrawing.  This 
building,  which  had  originally  consisted  of  a 
single  room,  elevated  upon  four  posts  about 
ten  feet  high,  was  now  little  more  than  a  roof; 
the  floor  had  fallen  away,  the  joists  and  planks 
loosely  piled  on  the  ground  below  or  resting 
on  end  at  various  angles,  not  wholly  torn  from 
their  fastenings  above.  The  supporting  posts 
were  themselves  no  longer  vertical.  It  looked 
as  if  the  whole  edifice  would  go  down  at  the 
touch  of  a  finger.  Concealing  himself  in  the 
debris  of  joists  and  flooring,  Searing  looked 
across  the  open  ground  between  his  point  of 
view  and  a  spur  of  Kenesaw  Mountain,  a 
half  mile  away.  A  road  leading  up  and 
across  this  spur  was  crowded  with  troops — 
the  rear  guard  of  the  retiring  enemy,  their 
gun  barrels  gleaming  in  the  morning  sunlight. 
Searing  had  now  learned  all  that  he  could 
hope  to  know.  It  was  his  duty  to  return  to 
his  own  command  with  all  possible  speed  and 
report  his  discovery.  But  the  gray  column 
of  infantry  toiling  up  the  mountain  road  was 


74  OXE  Or  THE  MISSING. 

singularly  tempting.  His  rifle — an  ordinary 
"Springfield,"  but  fitted  with  a  globe  sight 
and  hair  trigger — would  easily  send  its  ounce 
and  a  quarter  of  lead  hissing  into  their  midst. 
That  would  probably  not  affect  the  duration 
and  result  of  the  war,  but  it  is  the  business  of 
a  soldier  to  kill.  It  is  also  his  pleasure  if  he 
is  a  good  soldier.  Searing  cocked  his  rifle 
and  "set"  the  trigger. 

But  it  was  decreed  from  the  beginning  of 
time  that  Private  Searing  was  not  to  murder 
anybody  that  bright  summer  morning,  nor 
was  the  Confederate  retreat  to  be  announced 
by  him  For  countless  ages  events  had  been 
so  matching  themselves  together  in  that  won- 
drous mosaic  to  some  parts  of  which,  dimly 
discernible,  we  give  the  name  of  history,  that 
the  acts  which  he  had  in  will  would  have 
marred  the  harmony  of  the  pattern. 

Some  twenty-five  years  previously  the 
Power  charged  with  the  execution  of  the  work 
according  to  the  design  had  provided  against 
that  mischance  by  causing  the  birth  of  a  cer- 
tain male  child  in  a  little  village  at  the  foot  of 
the  Carpathian  Mountains,  had  carefully 
reared  it,  supervised  its  education,  directed 
its  desires  into  a  military  channel,  and  in  due 
time  made  it  an  officer  of  artillery.  By  the 


ONE  OF  THE  MISSING.  75 

concurrence  of  an  infinite  number  of  favoring 
influences  and  their  preponderance  over  an 
infinite  number  of  opposing  ones,  this  officer 
of  artillery  had  been  made  to  commit  a  breach 
of  discipline  and  fly  from  his  native  country 
to  avoid  punishment.  He  had  been  directed 
to  New  Orleans  (instead  of  New  York)  where 
a  recruiting  officer  awaited  him  on  the  wharf. 
He  was  enlisted  and  promoted,  and  things 
were  so  ordered  that  he  now  commanded  a 
Confederate  battery  some  three  miles  along 
the  line  from  where  Jerome  Searing,  the  Fed- 
eral scout,  stood  cocking  his  rifle.  Nothing 
had  been  neglected — at  every  step  in  the  prog- 
ress of  both  these  men's  lives,  and  in  the  lives 
of  their  ancestors  and  contemporaries,  and  of 
the  lives  of  the  contemporaries  of  their  ances- 
tors— the  right  thing  had  been  done  to  bring 
about  the  desired  result.  Had  anything  in  all 
this  vast  concatenation  been  overlooked, 
Private  Searing  might  have  fired  on  the  re- 
treating Confederates  that  morning,and  would 
perhaps  have  missed.  As  it  fell  out,  a  cap- 
tain of  artillery,  having  nothing  better  to  do 
while  awaiting  his  turn  to  pull  out  and  be  off, 
amused  himself  by  sighting  a  field  piece  ob- 
liquely to  his  right  at  what  he  took  to  be  some 
Federal  officers  on  the  crest  of  a  hill,  and  dis- 
charged it.  The  shot  flew  high  of  its  mark, 


76  ONE  OF  THE  MISSfNG. 

As  Jerome  Searing  drew  back  the  hammer 
of  his  rifle,  and,  with  his  eyes  upon  the  distant 
Confederates,  considered  where  he  could  plant 
his  shot  with  the  best  hope  of  making  a  widow 
or  an  orphan  or  a  childless  mother — perhaps 
all  three,  lor  Private  Searing,  although  he  had 
repeatedly  refus:  d  promotion,  was  not  with- 
out a  certain  kind  of  ambition — he  heard  a 
rushing  sound  in  the  air,  like  that  made  by 
the  wings  of  a  great  bird  swooping  down 
upon  its  prey.  More  quickly  than  he  could 
apprehend  the  gradation,  it  increased  to  a 
hoarse  and  horrible  roar,  as  the  missile  that 
made  it  sprang  at  him  out  of  the  sky,  strik- 
ing with  a  deafening  impact  one  of  the  posts 
supporting  the  confusion  of  timbers  above 
him,  smashing  it  into  matchwood,  and  bring- 
ing down  the  crazy  edifice  with  a  loud  clatter, 
in  clouds  of  blinding  dust! 

Lieutenant  Adrian  Searing,  in  command  of 
the  picket  guard  on  that  part  of  the  line 
through  which  his  brother  Jerome  had  passed 
on  his  mission,  sat  with  attentive  ears  in  his 
breastwork  behind  the  line.  Not  the  faintest 
sound  escaped  him;  the  cry  of  a  bird,  the 
barking  of  a  squirrel,  the  noise  of  the  wind 
among  the  pines — all  were  anxiously  noted  by 
his  overstrained  sense.  Suddenly,  directly 


77 

in  front  ol  his  line,  he  heard  a  faint,  confused 
rumble,  like  the  clatter  of  a  falling  building 
translated  by  distance.  At  the  same  moment 
an  officer  approached  him  on  foot  from  the 
rear  and  saluted. 

"Lieutenant,"  said  the  aide,  "the  colonel 
directs  you  to  move  forward  your  line  and  feel 
the  enemy  if  you  find  him.  If  not,  continue 
the  advance  until  directed  to  halt.  There  is 
reason  to  think  that  the  enemy  has  retreated." 

The  lieutenant  nodded  and  said  nothing; 
the  other  officer  retired.  In  a  moment  the 
men,  apprised  of  their  duty  by  the  non-com- 
missioned officers  in  low  tones,  had  deployed 
from  their  rifle  pits  and  were  moving  forward 
in  skirmishing  order,  with  set  teeth  and  beat- 
ing hearts.  The  lieutenant  mechanically 
looked  at  his  watch.  Six  o'clock  and  eight- 
een minutes. 

When  Jerome  Searing  recovered  conscious- 
ness, he  did  not  at  once  understand  what  had 
occurred.  It  was,  indeed,  some  time  before 
he  opened  his  eyes.  For  a  while  he  believed 
that  he  had  died  and  been  buried,  and  he 
tried  to  recall  some  portions  of  the  burial 
service.  He  thought  that  his  wife  was  kneel- 
ing upon  his  grave,  adding  her  weight  to 
that  of  the  earth  upon  his  breast.  The  two 


7-8  O.VE  OF  THE  MISS1\'G, 

of  them,  widow  and  earth,  had  crushed  his 
coffin.  Unless  the  children  should  persuade 
her  to  go  home,  he  would  not  much  longer 
be  able  to  breathe.  He  felt  a  sense  of  wrong. 
"I  cannot  speak  to  her,"  he  thought;  "the 
dead  have  no  voice;  and  if  I  open  my  eyes 
I  shall  get  them  full  of  earth." 

He  opened  his  eyes — a  great  expanse  of 
blue  sky,  rising  from  a  fringe  of  the  tops  of 
trees.  In  the  foreground,  shutting  out  some 
of  the  trees,  a  high,  dun  mound,  angular  in 
outline  and  crossed  by  an  intricate,  pattern- 
less  system  of  straight  lines;  in  the  center  a 
bright  ring  of  metal — the  whole  an  immeas- 
urable distance  away — a  distance  so  incon- 
ceivably great  that  it  fatigued  him,  and  he 
closed  his  eyes.  The  moment  that  he  did  so 
he  was  conscious  of  an  insufferable  light.  A 
sound  was  in  his  ears  like  the  low,  rhythmic 
thunder  of  a  distant  sea  breaking  in  success- 
ive waves  upon  the  beach,  and  out  of  this 
noise,  seeming  a  part  of  it,  or  possibly  com- 
ing from  beyond  it,  and  intermingled  with 
its  ceaseless  undertone,  came  the  articulate 
words:  (<Jerome  Searing,  you  are  caught 
like  a  rat  in  a  trap — in  a  trap,  trap,  trap." 

Suddenly  there  fell  a  great  silence,  a  black 
darkness,  an  infinite  tranquillity,  and  Jerome 


6>A'A"  OF  THE  M1SS1XG.  79 

Searing,  perfectly  conscious  of  his  rathood, 
and  well  assured  of  the  trap  that  he  was  in, 
remembered  all,  and,  nowise  alarmed,  again 
opened  his  eyes  to  reconnoitre,  to  note  the 
strength  of  his  enemy,  to  plan  his  defense. 

He  was  caught  in  a  reclining  posture,  his 
back  firmly  supported  by  a  solid  beam.  An- 
other lay  across  his  breast,  but  he  had  been 
able  to  shrink  a  little  away  from  it  so  that  it 
no  longer  oppressed  him,  though  it  was  im- 
movable. A  brace  joining  it  at  an  angle  had 
wedged  him  against  a  pile  of  boards  on  his 
left,  fastening  the  arm  on  that  side.  His 
legs,  slightly  parted  and  straight  along  the 
ground,  were  covered  upward  to  the  knees 
with  a  mass  of  debris  which  towered  above 
his  narrow  horizon.  His  head  was  as  rigidly 
fixed  as  in  a  vice;  he  could  move  his  eyes,  his 
chin — no  more.  Only  his  right  arm  was 
partly  free.  ' '  You  must  help  us  out  of  this, ' ' 
he  said  to  it.  But  he  could  not  get  it  from 
under  the  heavy  timber  athwart  his  chest, 
nor  move  it  outward  more  than  six  inches  at 
the  elbow. 

Searing  was  not  seriously  injured,  nor  did 
he  suffer  pain.  A  smart  rap  on  the  head 
from  a  flying  fragment  of  the  splintered  post, 
incurred  simultaneously  with  the  frightfully 


8o  ONE  OF  rin-:  MISSING. 

sudden  shock  to  the  nervous  system,  had 
momentarily  dazed  him.  His  term  of  un- 
consciousness, including  the  period  of  recov- 
ery, during  which  he  had  had  the  strange 
fancies,  had  probably  not  exceeded  a  few 
seconds,  for  the  dust  of  the  wreck  had  not 
wholly  cleared  away  as  he  began  an  intelli- 
gent survey  of  the  situation. 

With  his  partly  free  right  hand  he  now 
tried  to  get  hold  of  the  beam  which  lay 
across,  but  not  quite  against,  his  breast.  In 
no  way  could  he  do  so.  He  was  unable  to 
depress  the  shoulder  so  as  to  push  the  elbow 
beyond  that  edge  of  the  timber  which  was 
nearest  his  knees;  failing  in  that,  he  could 
not  raise  the  forearm  and  hand  to  grasp  the 
beam.  The  brace  that  made  an  angle  with 
it  downward  and  backward  prevented  him 
from  doing  anything  in  that  direction,  and 
between  it  and  his  body  the  space  was  not 
half  as  wide  as  the  length  of  his  forearm. 
Obviously  he  could  not  get  his  hand  under 
the  beam  nor  over  it;  he  could  not,  in  fact, 
touch  it  at  all.  Having  demonstrated  his  in- 
ability, he  desisted,  and  began  to  think  if  he 
could  reach  any  of  the  debris  piled  upon  his 
legs. 

In  surveying  the  mass  with  a  view  to  de- 


ONE  OF    THE  MISSING.  8 1 

termining  that  point,  his  attention  was  ar- 
rested by  what  seemed  to  be  a  ring  of  shining 
metal  immediately  in  front  of  his  eyes.  It 
appeared  to  him  at  first  to  surround  some 
perfectly  black  substance,  and  it  was  some- 
what more  than  a  half  inch  in  diameter.  It 
suddenly  occurred  to  his  mind  that  the  black- 
ness was  simply  shadow,  and  that  the  ring 
was  in  fact  the  muzzle  of  his  rifle  protruding 
from  the  pile  of  debris.  He  was  not  long  in 
satisfying  himself  that  this  was  so — if  it  was  a 
satisfaction.  By  closing  either  eye  he  could 
look  a  little  way  along  the  barrel — to  the 
point  where  it  was  hidden  by  the  rubbish 
that  held  it.  He  could  see  the  one  side, 
with  the  corresponding  eye,  at  apparently 
the  same  angle  as  the  other  side  with  the 
other  eye.  Looking  with  the  right  eye,  the 
weapon  seemed  to  be  directed  at  a  point  to 
the  left  of  his  head,  and  vice  versa.  He  was 
unable  to  see  the  upper  surface  of  the  barrel, 
but  could  see  the  under  surface  of  the  stock 
at  a  slight  angle.  The  piece  was,  in  fact, 
aimed  at  the  exact  center  of  his  forehead. 

In  the  perception  of  this  circumstance,  in 
the  recollection  that  just  previously  to  the 
mischance  of  which  this  uncomfortable  situ- 
ation was  the  result,  he  had  cocked  the  gun 
6 


82  ONE  OF    THE  MISSING. 

and  set  the  trigger  so  that  a  touch  would 
discharge  it.  Private  Searing  was  affected 
with  a  feeling  of  uneasiness.  But  that  was  as 
far  as  possible  from  fear;  he  was  a  brave 
man,  somewhat  familiar  with  the  aspect  of 
rifles  from  that  point  of  view,  and  of  cannon, 
too;  and  now  he  recalled,  with  something 
like  amusement,  an  incident  of  his  experi- 
ence at  the  storming  of  Missionary  Ridge, 
where,  walking  up  to  one  of  the  enemy's 
embrasures  from  which  he  had  seen  a  heavy 
gun  throw  charge  after  charge  of  grape  among 
the  assailants,  he  thought  for  a  moment  that 
the  piece  had  been  withdrawn;  he  could  see 
nothing  in  the  opening  but  a  brazen  circle. 
What  that  was  he  had  understood  just  in 
time  to  step  aside  as  it  pitched  another  peck 
of  iron  down  that  swarming  slope.  To  face 
firearms  is  one  of  the  commonest  incidents  in 
a  soldier's  life — firearms,  too,  with  malevo- 
lent eyes  blazing  behind  them.  That  is  what 
a  soldier  is  for.  Still,  Private  Searing  did 
not  altogether  relish  the  situation,  and  turned 
away  his  eyes. 

After  groping,  aimless,  with  his  right  hand 
for  a  time,  he  made  an  ineffectual  attempt  to 
release  his  left.  Then  he  tried  to  disengage 
his  head,  the  fixity  of  which  was  the  more 


ONE  OF    THE  MISSING.  83 

annoying  from  his  ignorance  of  what  held  it. 
Next  he  tried  to  free  his  feet,  but  while  ex- 
erting the  powerful  muscles  of  -his  legs  for 
that  purpose  it  occurred  to  him  that  a  dis- 
turbance of  the  rubbish  which  held  them 
might  discharge  the  rifle;  how  it  could  have 
endured  what  had  already  befallen  it  he  could 
not  understand,  although  memory  assisted 
him  with  various  instances  in  point.  One  in 
particular  he  recalled,  in  which,  in  a  moment 
of  mental  abstraction,  he  had  clubbed  his 
rifle  and  beaten  out  another  gentleman's 
brains,  observing  afterward  that  the  weapon 
which  he  had  been  diligently  swinging  by  the 
muzzle  was  loaded,  capped,  and  at  full  cock 
— knowledge  of  which  circumstance  would 
doubtless  have  cheered  his  antagonist  to 
longer  endurance.  He  had  always  smiled 
in  recalling  that  blunder  of  his  ' '  green  and 
salad  days  "  as  a  soldier,  but  now  he  did  not 
smile.  He  turned  his  eyes  again  to  the  muz- 
zle of  the  gun,  and  for  a  moment  fancied  that 
it  had  moved;  it  seemed  somewhat  nearer. 

Again  he  looked  away.  The  tops  of  the 
distant  trees  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  plan- 
tation interested  him;  he  had  not  before  ob- 
served how  light  and  feathery  they  seemed, 
nor  how  darkly  blue  the  sky  was,  even  among 


84  ONE  OF    THE  MISSING. 

their  branches,  where  they  somewhat  paled  it 
with  their  green ;  above  him  it  appeared  al- 
most black.  "It  will  be  uncomfortably  hot 
here,"  he  thought,  "as  the  day  advances. 
I  wonder  which  way  I  am  looking." 

Judging  by  such  shadows  as  he  could  see, 
he  decided  that  his  face  was  due  north;  he 
would  at  least  not  have  the  sun  in  his  eyes, 
and  north — well,  that  was  toward  his  wife 
and  children. 

"Bah!"  he  exclaimed  aloud,  "what  have 
they  to  do  with  it?  " 

He  closed  his  eyes.  "As  I  can't  get  out, 
I  may  as  well  go  to  sleep.  The  rebels  are 
gone,  and  some  of  our  fellows  are  sure  to 
stray  out  here  foraging.  They'll  find  me." 

But  he  did  not  sleep.  Gradually  he  be- 
came sensible  of  a  pain  in  his  forehead— a 
dull  ache,  hardly  perceptible  at  first,  but 
growing  more  and  more  uncomfortable.  He 
opened  his  eyes  and  it  was  gone — closed 
them  and  it  returned.  "The  devil!"  he 
said,  irrelevantly,  and  stared  again  at  the 
sky.  He  heard  the  singing  of  birds,  the 
strange  metallic  note  of  the  meadow  lark, 
suggesting  the  clash  of  vibrant  blades.  He 
fell  into  pleasant  memories  of  his  childhood, 
played  again  with  his  brother  and  sister, 


ONE  OF    THE   MISSING.  85 

raced  across  the  fields,  shouting  to  alarm  the 
sedentary  larks,  entered  the  somber  forest 
beyond,  and  with  timid  steps  followed  the  faint 
path  to  Ghost  Rock,  standing  at  last  with 
audible  heart  throbs  before  the  Dead  Man's 
Cave  and  seeking  to  penetrate  its  awful  mys- 
tery. For  the  first  time  he  observed  that 
the  opening  of  the  haunted  cavern  was  en- 
circled by  a  ring  of  metal.  Then  all  else 
vanished  and  left  him  gazing  into  the  barrel 
of  his  rifle  as  before.  But  whereas  before  it 
had  seemed  nearer,  it  now  seemed  an  incon- 
ceivable distance  away,  and  all  the  more  sin- 
ister for  that.  He  cried  out,  and,  startled  by 
something  in  his  own  voice — the  note  of  fear 
— lied  to  himself  in  denial:  "If  I  don't  sing 
out  I  may  stay  here  till  I  die." 

He  now  made  no  further  attempt  to  evade 
the  menacing  stare  of  the  gun  barrel.  If  he 
turned  away  his  eyes  an  instant  it  was  to 
look  for  assistance  (although  he  could  not 
see  the  ground  on  either  side  the  ruin),  and 
he  permitted  them  to  return,  obedient  to  the 
imperative  fascination.  If  he  closed  them,  it 
was  from  weariness,  and  instantly  the  poign- 
ant pain  in  his  forehead — the  prophecy  and 
menace  of  the  bullet — forced  him  to  reopen 
them. 


86 

The  tension  of  nerve  and  brain  was  too  se- 
vere; nature  came  to  his  relief  with  intervals 
of  unconsciousness.  Reviving  from  one  of 
these,  he  became  sensible  of  a  sharp,  smart- 
ing pain  in  his  right  hand,  and  when  he 
worked  his  fingers  together,  or  rubbed  his 
palm  with  them,  he  could  feel  that  they  were 
wet  and  slippery.  He  could  not  see  the 
hand,  but  he  knew  the  sensation;  it  was  run- 
ning blood.  In  his  delirium  he  had  beaten  it 
against  the  jagged  fragments  of  the  wreck, 
had  clutched  it  full  of  splinters.  He  resolved 
that  he  would  meet  his  fate  more  manly.  He 
was  a  plain,  common  soldier,  had  no  religion 
and  not  much  philosophy;  he  could  not  die 
like  a  hero,  with  great  and  wise  last  words, 
even  if  there  were  someone  to  hear  them,  but 
he  could  die  "game,"  and  he  would.  But  if 
he  could  only  know  when  to  expect  the  shot! 

Some  rats  which  had  probably  inhabited 
the  shed  came  sneak'ing  and  scampering 
about.  One  of  them  mounted  the  pile  of  de- 
bris that  held  the  rifle;  another  followed,  and 
another.  Searing  regarded  them  at  first 
with  indifference,  then  with  friendly  interest; 
then,  as  the  thought  flashed  into  his  bewil- 
dered mind  that  they  might  touch  the  trigger 
of  his  rifle,  he  screamed  at  them  to  go  away. 
"  It  is  no  business  of  yours,"  he  cried. 


ONE  OF  THE  MISSING.  87 


The  creatures  left;  they  would  return  later, 
attack  his  face,  gnaw  away  his  nose,  cut  his 
throat — he  knew  that,  but  he  hoped  by  that 
time  to  be  dead. 

Nothing  could  now  unfix  his  gaze  from  the 
little  ring  of  metal  with  its  black  interior. 
The  pain  in  his  forehead  was  fierce  and  con- 
stant. He  felt  it  gradually  penetrating  the 
brain  more  and  more  deeply,  until  at  last  its 
progress  was  arrested  by  the  wood  at  the 
back  of  his  head.  It  grew  momentarily  more 
insufferable;  he  began  wantonly  beating  his 
lacerated  hand  against  the  splinters  again  to 
counteract  that  horrible  ache.  It  seemed  to 
throb  with  a  slow,  regular,  recurrence  each 
pulsation  sharper  than  the  preceding,  and 
sometimes  he  cried  out,  thinking  he  felt  the 
fatal  bullet.  No  thoughts  of  home,  of  wife 
and  children,  of  country,  of  glory.  The  whole 
record  of  memory  was  effaced.  The  world 
had  passed  away — not  a  vestige  remained. 
Here  in  this  confusion  of  timbers  and  boards 
is  the  sole  universe.  Here  is  immortality  in 
time — each  pain  an  everlasting  life.  The 
throbs  tick  off  eternities. 

Jerome  Searing,  the  man  of  courage,  the 
formidable  enemy,  the  strong,  resolute  war- 
rior, was  as  pale  as  a  ghost.  His  jaw  was 


88  ONE  OF  THE  MISS1XG. 

fallen;  his  eyes  protruded;  he  trembled  in 
every  fiber;  a  cold  sweat  bathed  his  entire 
body;  he  screamed  with  fear.  He  was  not 
insane — he  was  terrified. 

In  groping  about  with  his  torn  and  bleed- 
ing hand  he  seized  at  last  a  strip  of  board, 
and,  pulling,  felt  it  give  way.  It  lay  parallel 
with  his  body,  and  by  bending  his  elbow  as 
much  as  the  contracted  space  would  permit, 
he  could  draw  it  a  few  inches  at  a  time.  Fin- 
ally it  was  altogether  loosened  from  the 
wreckage  covering  his  legs;  he  could  lift  it 
clear  of  the  ground  its  whole  length.  A 
great  hope  came  into  his  mind:  perhaps  he 
could  work  it  upward,  that  is  to  say  back- 
ward, far  enough  to  lift  the  end  and  push 
aside  the  rifle;  or,  if  that  were  too  tightly 
wedged,  so  hold  the  strip  of  board  as  to  deflect 
the  bullet.  With  this  object  he  passed  it  back- 
ward inch  by  inch,  hardly  daring  to  breathe 
lest  that  act  somehow  defeat  his  intent,  and 
more  than  ever  unable  to  remove  his  eyes 
from  the  rifle,  which  might  perhaps  now 
hasten  to  improve  its  waning  opportunity. 
Something  at  least  had  been  gained;  in  the 
occupation  of  his  mind  in  this  attempt  at  self- 
defense  he  was  less  sensible  of  the  pain  in  his 
head  and  had  ceased  to  scream.  But  he  was 


ONE  OF   THE  MISSING.  89 

still  dreadfully  frightened  and  his  teeth  rattled 
like  castanets. 

The  strip  of  board  ceased  to  move  to  the 
suasion  of  his  hand.  He  tugged  at  it  with 
all  his  strength,  changed  the  direction  of  its 
length  all  he  could,  but  it  had  met  some  ex- 
tended obstruction  behind  him,  and  the  end 
in  front  was  still  too  far  away  to  clear  the  pile 
of  debris  and  reach  the  muzzle  of  the  gun. 
It  extended,  indeed,  nearly  as  far  as  the 
trigger  guard,  which,  uncovered  by  the  rub- 
bish, he  could  imperfectly  see  with  his  right 
eye.  He  tried  to  break  the  strip  with  his 
hand,  but  had  no  leverage.  Perceiving  his 
defeat,  all  his  terror  returned,  augmented  ten- 
fold. The  black  aperture  of  the  rifle  appeared 
to  threaten  a  sharper  and  more  imminent 
death  in  punishment  of  his  rebellion.  The 
track  of  the  bullet  through  his  head  ached 
with  an  intenser  anguish.  He  began  to  trem- 
ble again. 

Suddenly  he  became  composed.  His 
tremor  subsided.  He  clinched  his  teeth  and 
drew  down  his  eyebrows.  He  had  not  ex- 
hausted his  means  of  defense;  a  new  design 
had  shaped  itself  in  his  mind — another  plan 
of  battle.  Raising  the  front  end  of  the  strip 
of  board,  he  carefully  pushed  it  forward 


9o 


ONE   OF   THE   MISSING. 


through  the  wreckage  at  the  side  of  the  rifle 
until  it  pressed  against  the  trigger  guard. 
Then  he  moved  the  end  slowly  outward  until 
he  could  feel  that  it  had  cleared  it,  then,  clos- 
ing his  eyes,  thrust  it  against  the  trigger  with 
all  his  strength!  There  was  no  explosion; 
the  rifle  had  been  discharged  as  it  dropped 
from  his  hand  when  the  building  fell.  But 
Jerome  Searing  was  dead. 

A  line  of  Federal  skirmishers  swept  across 
the  plantation  toward  the  mountain.  They 
passed  on  both  sides  of  the  wrecked  build- 
ing, observing  nothing.  At  a  short  distance 
in  their  rear  came  their  commander,  Lieu- 
tenant Adrian  Searing.  He  casts  his  eyes 
curiously  upon  the  ruin  and  sees  a  dead  body 
half  buried  in  boards  and  timbers.  It  is  so 
covered  with  dust  that  its  clothing  is  Confed- 
erate gray.  Its  face  is  yellowish  white;  the 
cheeks  are  fallen  in,  the  temples  sunken,  too, 
with  sharp  ridges  about  them,  making  the 
forehead  forbiddingly  narrow;  the  upper  lip, 
slightly  lifted,  shows  the  white  teeth,  rigidly 
clinched.  The  hair  is  heavy  with  moisture, 
the  face  as  wet  as  the  dewy  grass  all  about. 
From  his  point  of  view  the  officer  does  not 
observe  the  rifle;  the  man  was  apparently 
killed  by  the  fall  of  the  building. 


ONE  OF    THE  MISSING.  QI 

"Dead  a  week,"  said  the  officer  curtly, 
moving  on  mechanically  pulling  out  his  watch 
as  if  to  verify  his  estimate  of  time.  Six 
o'clock  and  forty  minutes. 


KILLED  AT  RESACA. 


best  soldier  of  our  staff  was  Lieuten- 
ant Herman  Brayle,  one  of  the  two  aides- 
de-camp.  I  don't  remember  where  the  gen- 
eral picked  him  up;  from  some  Ohio  regi- 
ment, I  think;  none  of  us  had  previously 
known  him,  and  it  would  have  been  strange 
if  we  had,  for  no  two  of  us  came  from  the 
same  State,  nor  even  from  adjoining  States. 
The  general  seemed  to  think  that  a  position 
on  his  staff  was  a  distinction  that  should  be 
so  judiciously  conferred  as  not  to  beget  any 
sectional  jealousies  and  imperil  the  integrity 
of  that  portion  of  the  Union  which  was  still 
an  integer.  He  would  not  even  choose  them 
from  his  own  command,  but  by  some  jugglery 
at  department  headquarters  obtained  them 
from  other  brigades.  Under  such  circum- 
stances a  man's  services  had  to*  be  very  dis- 
tinguished indeed  to  be  heard  of  by  his  family 
and  the  friends  of  his  youth  ;  and  ' '  the  speak- 
ing trump  of  fame"  was  a  trifle  hoarse  from 
loquacity,  anyhow. 

(93) 


94  KILLED  AT  RES  AC  A. 

Lieutenant  Brayle  was  more  than  six  feet  in 
height  and  of  splendid  proportions,  with  the 
light  hair  and  gray-blue  eyes  which  men  simi- 
larly gifted  usually  find  associated  with  a  high 
order  of  courage.  As  he  was  commonly  in 
full  uniform,  especially  in  action,  when  most 
officers  are  content  to  be  less  flamboyantly 
attired,  he  was  a  very  striking  and  conspic- 
uous figure.  As  for  the  rest,  he  had  a  gentle- 
man's manners,  a  scholar's  head,  and  a  lion's 
heart.  His  age  was  about  thirty. 

We  all  soon  came  to  like  Brayle  as  much 
as  we  admired  him,  and  it  was  with  sincere 
concern  that  in  the  engagement  at  Stone's 
River — our  first  action  after  he  joined  us — we 
observed  that  he  had  one  most  objectionable 
and  unsoldierly  quality,  he  was  vain  of  his 
courage.  During  all  the  vicissitudes  and  mu- 
tations of  that  hideous  encounter,  whether 
our  troops  were  fighting  in  the  open  cotton 
fields,  in  the  cedar  thickets,  or  behind  the 
railway  embankment,  he  did  not  once  take 
cover,  except  when  sternly  commanded  to  do 
so  by  the  general,  who  commonly  had  other 
things  to  think  of  than  the  lives  of  his  staff 
officers — or  those  of  his  men,  for  that  matter- 

In  every  subsequent  engagement  while 
Brayle  was  with  us  it  was  the  same  way.  He 


KILLED  AT  RES  AC  A.  95 

would  sit  his  horse  like  an  equestrian  statue, 
in  a  storm  of  bullets  and  grape,  in  the  most 
exposed  places — wherever,  in  fact,  duty,  re- 
quiring him  to  go,  permitted  him  to  remain 
— when,  without  trouble  and  with  distinct 
advantage  to  his  reputation  for  common  sense 
he  might  have  been  in  such  security  as  is 
possible  on  a  battle  field  in  the  brief  intervals 
of  personal  inaction. 

On  foot,  from  necessity  or  in  deference  to 
his  dismounted  commander  or  associates,  his 
conduct  was  the  same.  He  would  stand  like 
a  rock  in  the  open  when  officers  and  men 
alike  had  taken  to  cover;  while  men  older  in 
service  and  years,  higher  in  rank  and  of  un- 
questionable intrepidity,  were  loyally  preserv- 
ing behind  the  crest  of  a  hill  lives  infinitely 
precious  to  their  country,  this  fellow  would 
stand,  equally  idle,  on  the  ridge,  facing  in  the 
direction  of  the  sharpest  fire. 

When  battles  are  going  on  in  open  ground 
it  frequently  occurs  that  the  opposing  lines, 
confronting  one  another  within  a  stone's 
throw  for  hours,  hug  the  earth  as  closely  as 
if  they  loved  it.  The  line  officers  in  their 
proper  places  flatten  themselves  no  less,  and 
the  field  officers,  their  horses  all  killed  or 
sent  to  the  rear,  crouch  beneath  the  infernal 


96  KILLED  AT  RES  AC  A, 

canopy  of  hissing  lead  and  screaming  iron 
without  a  thought  of  personal  dignity. 

In  such  circumstances  the  life  of  a  staff 
officer  of  a  brigade  is  distinctly  ' '  not  a  happy 
one,' '  mainly  because  of  its  precarious  tenure 
and  the  unnerving  alternations  of  emotion  to 
which  he  is  exposed.  From  a  position  of 
that  comparative  security  from  which  a  civil- 
ian would  ascribe  his  escape  to  a  "miracle," 
he  may  be  dispatched  with  an  order  to  some 
commander  of  a  prone  regiment  in  the  front 
line — a  person  for  the  moment  inconspicuous 
and  not  always  easy  to  locate  without  a  deal 
of  search  among  men  somewhat  preoccupied, 
and  in  a  din  in  which  question  and  answer 
alike  must  be  imparted  in  the  sign  language. 
It  is  customary  in  such  cases  to  duck  the  head 
and  scuttle  away  on  a  keen  run,  an  object  of 
lively  interest  to  some  thousands  of  admiring 
marksmen.  In  returning — well,  it  is  not  cus- 
tomary to  return. 

Brayle's  practice  was  different.  He  would 
consign  his  horse  to  the  care  of  an  orderly — 
he  loved  his  horse — and  walk  quietly  away 
on  his  horrible  errand  with  never  a  stoop  of 
the  back,  his  splendid  figure,  accentuated  by 
his  uniform,  holding  the  eye  with  a  strange 
fascination.  We  watched  him  with  suspended 


KILLED  A  r  RES  AC  A.  g- 

breath,  our  hearts  in  our  mouths.  On  one 
occasion  of  this  kind,  indeed,  one  of  our 
number,  an  impetuous  stammerer,  was  so 
possessed  by  his  emotion  that  he  shouted  at 
me:— 

"I'll  b-b-bet  you  t-two  d-d-dollars  they 
d-drop  him  b-b-fore  he  g-gets  to  that  d-d- 
ditch!" 

I  did  not  accept  the  brutal  wager;  I  thought 
they  would.  Let  me  do  justice  to  a  brave 
man's  memory;  in  all  these  needless  expos- 
ures of  lite  there  was  no  visible  bravado  nor 
subsequent  narration.  In  the  few  instances 
when  some  of  us  had  ventured  to  remonstrate, 
Brayle  had  smiled  pleasantly  and  made  some 
light  reply,  which,  however,  had  not  encour- 
aged a  further  pursuit  of  the  subject.  Once 
he  said: — 

"Captain,  if  ever  I  come  to  grief  by  for- 
getting your  advice,  I  hope  my  last  moments 
will  be  cheered  by  the  sound  of  your  beloved 
voice  breathing  into  my  ear  the  blessed  words, 
'  I  told  you  so. '  ' 

We  laughed  at  the  captain — just  why  we 
could  probably  not  have  explained — and  that 
afternoon  when  he  was  shot  to  rags  from  an 
ambuscade  Brayle  remained  by  the  body  for 
some  time,  adjusting  the  limbs  with  needless 


care — there  in  the  middle  of  a  road  swept  by 
gusts  of  grape  and  canister!  It  is  easy  to 
condemn  this  kind  of  thing,  and  not  very 
difficult  to  refrain  from  imitation,  but  it  is  im- 
possible not  to  respect,  and  Brayle  was  liked 
none  the  less  for  the  weakness  which  had  so 
heroic  an  expression.  We  wished  he  were 
not  a  fool,  but  he  went  on  that  way  to  the 
end,  sometimes  hard  hit,  but  always  return- 
ing to  duty  as  good  as  new. 

Of  course,  it  came  at  last;  he  who  defies 
the  law  of  probabilities  challenges  an  adver- 
sary that  is  never  beaten.  It  was  at  Resaca, 
in  Georgia,  during  the  movement  that  resulted 
in  the  capture  of  Atlanta.  In  front  of  our 
brigade  the  enemy's  line  of  earthworks  ran 
through  open  fields  along  a  slight  crest.  At 
each  end  of  this  open  ground  we  were  close 
up  to  them  in  the  woods,  but  the  clear  ground 
we  could  not  hope  to  occupy  until  night, 
when  the  darkness  would  enable  us  to  burrow 
like  moles  and  throw  up  earth.  At  this  point 
our  line  was  a  quarter-mile  away  in  the  edge 
of  a  wood.  Roughly,  we  formed  a  semicircle, 
the  enemy's  fortified  line  being  the  chord  of 
the  arc. 

' '  Lieutenant,  go  tell  Colonel  Ward  to  work 
up  as  close  as  he  can  get  cover,  and  not  to 


KILLED  AT  RES  AC  A,  99 

waste  much  ammunition  in  unnecessary  fir- 
ing. You  may  leave  your  horse." 

When  the  general  gave  this*  direction  we 
were  in  the  fringe  of  the  forest,  near  the  right 
extremity  of  the  arc.  Colonel  Ward  was  at 
the  left.  The  suggestion  to  leave  the  horse 
obviously  enough  meant  that  Brayle  was  to 
take  the  longer  line,  through  the  woods  and 
among  the  men.  Indeed,  the  suggestion  was 
needless;  to  go  by  the  short  route  meant  ab- 
solutely certain  failure  to  deliver  the  message. 
Before  anybody  could  interpose,  Brayle  had 
cantered  lightly  into  the  field  and  the  enemy's 
works  were  in  crackling  conflagration. 

"Stop  that  damned  fool!"  shouted  the 
general. 

A  private  of  the  escort,  with  more  ambition 
than  brains,  spurred  forward  to  obey,  and 
within  ten  yards  left  himself  and  horse  dead  on 
the  field  of  honor. 

Brayle  was  beyond  recall,  galloping  easily 
along  parallel  to  the  enemy  and  less  than  two 
hundred  yards  distant.  He  was  a  picture  to 
see!  His  hat  had  been  blown  or  shot  from 
his  head,  and  his  long,  blonde  hair  rose  and  fell 
with  the  motion  of  his  horse.  He  sat  erect 
in  the  saddle,  holding  the  reins  lightly  in  his 
left  hand,  his  right  hanging  carelessly  at  his 


100  KILLED  AT  RES  AC  A. 

side.  An  occasional  glimpse  of  his  handsome 
profile  as  he  turned  his  head  one  way  or  the 
other  proved  that  the  interest  which  he  took 
in  what  was  going  on  was  natural  and  without 
affectation. 

The  picture  was  intensely  dramatic,  but  in 
no  degree  theatrical.  Successive  scores  of 
rifles  spat  at  him  viciously  as  he  came  within 
range,  and  our  own  line  in  the  edge  of  the 
timber  broke  out  in  visible  and  audible  de- 
fense. No  longer  regardful  of  themselves  or 
their  orders,  our  fellows  sprang  to  their  feet, 
and,  swarming  into  the  open,  sent  broad  sheets 
of  bullets  against  the  blazing  crest  of  the  of- 
fending works,  which  poured  an  answering 
fire  into  their  unprotected  groups  with  deadly 
effect.  The  artillery  on  both  sides  joined  the 
battle,  punctuating  the  rattle  and  roar  with 
deep  earth-shaking  explosions  and  tearing 
the  air  with  storms  of  screaming  grape,  which, 
from  the  enemy's  side,  splintered  the  trees 
and  spattered  them  with  blood,  and  from  ours 
defiled  the  smoke  of  his  arms  with  banks  and 
clouds  of  dust  from  his  parapet. 

My  attention  had  been  for  a  moment  averted 
to  the  general  combat,  but -now,  glancing 
down  the  unobscured  avenue  between  these 
two  thunderclouds,  I  saw  Brayle,  the  cause 


KIL I. E D  AT  K ESA CA.  I O I 

of  the  carnage.  Invisible  now  from  either  side, 
and  equally  doomed  by  friend  and  foe,  he 
stood  in  the  shot-swept  space,  motionless,  his 
face  toward  the  enemy.  At  some  little  dis- 
tance lay  his  horse.  I  instantly  divined  the 
cause  of  his  inaction. 

As  topographical  engineer  I  had,  early  in 
the  day,  made  a  hasty  examination  of  the 
ground,  and  now  remembered  that  at  that 
point  was  a  deep  and  sinuous  gully,  crossing 
half  the  field  from  the  enemy's  line,  its  gen- 
eral course  at  right  angles  to  it.  From  where 
we  were  it  was  invisible,  and  Brayle  had  evi- 
dently not  known  of  it.  Clearly,  it  was  im- 
passible. Its  salient  angles  would  have  af- 
forded him  absolute  security  if  he  had  chosen 
to  be  satisfied  with  the  miracle  already  wrought 
in  his  favor.  He  could  not  go  forward,  he 
would  not  turn  back;  he  stood  awaiting 
death.  It  did  not  keep  him  long  waiting. 

By  some  mysterous  coincidence,  almost  in- 
stantaneously as  he  ft-11,  the  firing  ceased,  a  few 
desultory  shots  at  long  intervals  serving  rather 
to  accentuate  than  break  the  silence.  It  was 
as  if  both  sides  had  suddenly  repented  of 
their  profitless  crime.  Four  stretcher  bearers, 
following  a  sergeant  with  a  white  flag,  soon 
afterward  moved  unmolested  into  the  field, 


lQ2  KILLED   AT  RES  AC  A. 

and  made  straight  for  Brayle's  body.  Sev- 
eral Confederate  officers  and  men  came  out  to 
meet  them,  and,  with  uncovered  heads,  as- 
sisted them  to  take  up  their  sacred  burden. 
As  it  was  borne  away  toward  us  we  heard 
beyond  the  hostile  works  fifes  and  a  muffled 
drum — a  dirge.  A  generous  enemy  honored 
the  fallen  brave. 

Amongst  the  dead  man's  effects  was  a 
soiled  Russia-leather  pocketbook.  In  the 
distribution  of  mementoes  of  our  friend,  which 
the  general,  as  administrator,  decreed,  this 
fell  to  me. 

A  year  after  the  close  of  the  war,  on  my 
way  to  California,  I  opened  and  idly  inspected 
it.  Out  of  an  overlooked  compartment  fell  a 
letter  without  envelope  or  address.  It  was 
in  a  woman's  handwriting,  and  began  with 
words  of  endearment,  but  no  name. 

It  had  the  following  date  line:  "  San  Fran- 
cisco, Cal. ,  July  9,  1862."  The  signature 
was  "Darling,"  in  marks  of  quotation.  In- 
cidentally, in  the  body  of  the  text,  the  writer's 
full  name  was  given — Marian  Mendenhall. 

The  letter  showed  evidence  of  cultivation 
and  good  breeding,  but  it  was  an  ordinary 
love  letter,  if  a  love  letter  can  be  ordinary. 
There  was  not  much  in  it,  but  there  was  some- 
thing. It  was  this: — 


KILLED   AT   RES  AC  A.  103 

''Mr.  Winters,  whom  I  shall  always  hate 
for  it,  has  been  telling  that  at  some  battle 
in  Virginia,  where  he  got  his  hurt,  you  were 
seen  crouching  behind  a  tree.  I  think  he 
wants  to  injure  you  in  my  regard,  which  he 
knows  the  story  would  do  if  I  believed  it.  I 
could  bear  to  hear  of  my  soldier  lover's  death, 
but  not  of  his  cowardice." 

These  were  the  v/ords  which  on  that  sunny 
afternoon,  in  a  distant  region,  had  slain  a 
hundred  men.  Is  woman  weak? 

One  evening  I  called  on  Miss  Mendenhall 
to  return  the  letter  to  her.  I  intended,  also, 
to  tell  her  what  she  had  done — but  not  that 
she  did  it.  I  found  her  in  a  handsome 
dwelling  on  Rincon  Hill.  She  was  beautiful, 
well  bred — in  a  word,  charming. 

"You  knew  Lieutenant  Herman  Brayle," 
I  said,  rather  abruptly.  "You  know,  doubt- 
less, that  he  fell  in  battle.  Among  his  effects 
was  found  this  letter  from  you.  My  errand 
here  is  to  place  it  in  your  hands." 

She  mechanically  took  the  letter,  glanced 
through  it  with  deepening  color,  and  then, 
looking  at  me  with  a  smile,  said: — 

"It  is  very  good  of  you,  though  I  am  sure 
it  was  hardly  worth  while."  She  started  sud- 
denly, and  changed  color.  "This  stain," 
she  said,  "is  it — surely  it  is  not — " 


IO4  KILLED  AT  RES  AC  A. 

"Madam,"  I  said,  "pardon  me,  but  that  is 
the  blood  of  the  truest  and  bravest  heart  that 
ever  beat. ' ' 

She  hastily  flung  the  letter  on  the  blazing 
coals.  "Uh!  I  cannot  bear  the  sight  of 
blood!"  she  said.  "How  did  he  die?  " 

I  had  involuntarily  risen  to  rescue  that  scrap 
of  paper,  sacred  even  to  me,  and  now  stood 
partly  behind  her.  As  she  asked  the  question 
she  turned  her  face  about  and  slightly  up- 
ward. The  light  of  the  burning  letter  was 
reflected  in  her  eyes,  and  touched  her  cheek 
with  a  tinge  of  crimson  like  the  stain  upon  its 
page.  I  had  never  seen  anything  so  beauti- 
ful as  this  detestable  creature. 

"He  was  bitten  by  a  snake,"  I  replied. 


THE    AFFAIR   AT    COULTER'S    NOTCH. 

"Do  you  think,  colonel,  that  your  brave 
Cou  ter  would  like  to  put  one  of  his  guns  in 
here  ? ' '  the  general  asked. 

He  was  apparently  not  altogether  serious; 
it  certainly  did  not  seem  a  place  where  any 
artillerist,  however  brave,  would  like  to  put  a 
gun.  The  colonel  thought  that  possibly  his 
division  commander  meant  good-humoredly 
to  intimate  that  Captain  Coulter's  courage 
had  been  too  highly  extolled  in  a  recent  con- 
versation between  them. 

"General,"  he  replied,  warmly,  "Coulter 
would  like  to  put  a  gun  anywhere  within 
reach  of  those  people,"  with  a  motion  of  his 
hand  in  the  direction  of  the  enemy. 

"It  is  the  only  place,"  said  the  general. 
He  was  serious,  then. 

The  place  was  a  depression,  a  "  notch,"  in 
the  sharp  crest  of  a  hill.  It  was  a  pass,  and 
through  it  ran  a  turnpike,  which,  reaching 
this  highest  point  in  its  course  by  a  sinuous 


IO6        THE  AI-'FAIit   AT  COULTER'S    NOTCH. 

ascent  through  a  thin  forest,  made  a  similar, 
though  less  steep,  descent  toward  the  enemy. 
For  a  mile  to  the  left  and  a  mile  to  the  right 
the  ridge,  though  occupied  by  Federal  in- 
fantry lying  close  behind  the  sharp  crest,  and 
appearing  as  if  held  in  place  by  atmospheric 
pressure,  was  inaccessible  to  artillery.  There 
was  no  place  but  the  bottom  of  the  notch,  and 
that  was  barely  wide  enough  for  the  roadbed. 
From  the  Confederate  side  this  point  was 
commanded  by  two  batteries  posted  on  a 
slightly  lower  elevation  beyond  a  creek,  and 
a  half-mile  away.  All  the  guns  but  one 
were  masked  by  the  trees  of  an  orchard;  that 
one — it  seemed  a  bit  of  impudence — was  di- 
rectly in  front  of  a  rather  grandiose  building,  the 
planter's  dwelling.  The  gun  was  safe  enough 
in  its  exposure — but  only  because  the  Fed- 
eral infantry  had  been  forbidden  to  lire. 
Coulter's  Notch — it  came  to  be  called  so — 
was  not,  that  pleasant  summer  afternoon,  a 
place  where  one  would  "like  to  put  a  gun." 
Three  or  four  dead  horses  lay  there,  sprawl- 
ing in  the  road,  three  or  four  dead  men  in  a 
trim  row  at  one  side  of  it,  and  a  little  back, 
down  the  hill.  All  but  one  were  cavalrymen 
belonging  to  the  Federal  advance.  One  was 
a  quartermaster.  The  general  commanding 


THE  AFFAIR  AT  COULTERS  XOTCH.        IOJ 

the  division,  and  the  colonel  commanding  the 
brigade,  with  their  staffs  and  escorts,  had 
ridden  into  the  notch  to  have  a  look  at  the 
enemy's  guns — which  had  straightway  ob- 
scured themselves  in  towering  clouds  of 
smoke.  It  was  hardly  profitable  to  be  curi- 
ous about  guns  which  had  the  trick  of  the 
cuttlefish,  and  the  season  of  observation  was 
brief.  At  its  conclusion — a  short  remove 
backward  from  where  it  began — occurred  the 
conversation  already  partly  reported.  "  It  is 
the  only  place, ' '  the  general  repeated  thought- 
fully, "to  get  at  them." 

The  colonel  looked  at  him  gravely. 
''There  is  room  for  but  one  gun,  General — 
one  against  twelve." 

"That  is  true — for  only  one  at  a  time," 
said  the  commander  with  something  like,  yet 
not  altogether  like,  a  smile.  "But  then, 
your  brave  Coulter — a  whole  battery  in  him- 
self." 

The  tone  of  irony  was  now  unmistakable. 
It  angered  the  colonel,  but  he  did  not  know 
what  to  say.  The  spirit  of  military  subor- 
dination is  not  favorable  to  retort,  nor  even 
deprecation.  At  this  moment  a  young  officer 
of  artillery  came  riding  slowly  up  the  road 
attended  by  his  bugler.  It  was  Captain 


108        THE  AFFAIR  AT  COULTER'S  A'OTCff. 

Coulter.  He  could  not  have  been  more  than 
twenty-three  years  of  age.  He  was  of  me- 
dium height,  but  very  slender  and  lithe,  sit- 
ting his  horse  with  something  of  the  air  of  a 
civilian.  In  face  he  was  of  a  type  singularly 
unlike  the  men  about  him;  thin,  high-nosed, 
gray-eyed,  with  a  slight  blonde  mustache, 
and  long,  rather  straggling  hair  of  the  same 
color.  There  was  an  apparent  negligence  in 
his  attire.  His  cap  was  worn  with  the  visor 
a  trifle  askew;  his  coat  was  buttoned  only  at 
the  sword  belt,  showing  a  considerable  ex- 
panse of  white  shirt,  tolerably  clean  for  that 
stage  of  the  campaign.  But  the  negligence 
was  all  in  his  dress  and  bearing;  in  his  face 
was  a  look  of  intense  interest  in  his  surround- 
ings. His  gray  eyes,  which  seemed  occasion- 
ally to  strike  right  and  left  across  the  land- 
scape, like  search-lights,  were  for  the  most 
part  fixed  upon  the  sky  beyond  the  Notch; 
until  he  should  arrive  at  the  summit  of  the 
road,  there  was  nothing  else  in  that  direc- 
tion to  see.  As  he  came  opposite  his  di- 
vision and  brigade  commanders  at  the  road- 
side he  saluted  mechanically  and  was  about 
to  pass  on.  Moved  by  a  sudden  impulse,  the 
colonel  signed  to  him  to  halt. 

"Captain  Coulter,"   he  said,   "the  enemy 


THE  A  FFA  IR  A  T  CO  UL  TER'S  NO  TCH.        \  09 

has  twelve  pieces  over  there  on  the  next  ridge. 
Ifl  rightly  understand  the  general,  he  directs 
that  you  bring  up  a  gun  and  engage  them." 

There  was  a  blank  silence;  the  general 
looked  stolidly  at  a  distant  regiment  swarm- 
ing slowly  up  the  hill  through  rough  under- 
growth, like  a  torn  and  draggled  cloud  of 
blue  smoke;  the  captain  appeared  not  to  have 
observed  him.  Presently  the  captain  spoke, 
slowly  and  with  apparent  effort: — 

"On  the  next  ridge,  did  you  say,  sir? 
Are  the  guns  near  the  house?  " 

"Ah,  you  have  been  over  this  road  before! 
Directly  at  the  house." 

"And  it  is — necessary — to  engage  them? 
The  order  is  imperative  ? ' ' 

His  voice  was  husky  and  broken.  He  was 
visibly  paler.  The  colonel  was  astonished 
and  mortified.  He  stole  a  glance  at  the  com- 
mander. In  that  set,  immobile  face  was  no 
sign;  it  was  as  hard  as  bronze.  A  moment 
later  the  general  rode  away,  followed  by  his 
staff  and  escort.  The  colonel,  humiliated 
and  indignant,  was  about  to  order  Captain 
Coulter  in  arrest,  when  the  latter  spoke  a  few 
words  in  a  low  tone  to  his  bugler,  saluted,  and 
rode  straight  forward  into  the  Notch,  where, 
presently,  at  the  summit  of  the  road,  his  field. 


I  TO        THE  A  I' I-' AIR  A/'  Cdl'L'I'J-lK'S  NOTCH- 

glass  at  his  eyes,  he  showed  against  the  sky, 
he  and  his  horse,  sharply  defined  and  motion- 
less as  an  equestrian  statue.  The  bugler  had 
dashed  down  the  road  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion at  headlong  speed  and  disappeared 
behind  a  wood.  Presently  his  bugle  was 
heard  singing  in  the  cedars,  and  in  an  incred- 
ibly short  time  a  single  gun  with  its  caisson, 
each  drawn  by  six  horses  and  manned  by  its 
full  complement  of  gunners,  came  bounding 
and  banging  up  the  grade  in  a  storm  of  dust, 
unlimbered  under  cover,  and  was  run  forward 
by  hand  to  the  fatal  crest  among  the  dead 
horses.  A  gesture  of  the  captain's  arm,  some 
strangely  agile  movements  of  the  men  in  load- 
ing, and  almost  before  the  troops  along  the 
way  had  ceased  to  hear  the  rattle  of  the 
wheels,  a  great  white  cloud  sprang  forward 
down  the  slope,  and  with  a  deafening  re- 
port the  affair  at  Coulter's  Notch  had  begun. 
It  is  not  intended  to  relate  in  detail  the 
progress  and  incidents  of  that  ghastly  con- 
test— a  contest  without  vicissitudes,  its  alter- 
nations only  different  degrees  of  despair. 
Almost  at  the  instant  when  Captain  Coulter's 
gun  blew  its  challenging  cloud  twelve  answer- 
ing clouds  rolled  upward  from  among  the 
trees  about  the  plantation  house,  a  deep  mul- 


7V//-;  AFI-'AIR  A  T  COUL  TER'S  XOTCff.          I  I  I 

tiple  report  roared  back  like  a  broken  echo, 
and  thenceforth  to  the  end  the  Federal  can- 
noneers fought  their  hopeless  battle  in  an  at- 
mosphere of  living  iron  whose  thoughts  were 
lightnings  and  whose  deeds  were  death. 

Unwilling  to  see  the  efforts  which  he  could 
not  aid  and  the  slaughter  which  he  could  not 
stay,  the  colonel  had  ascended  the  ridge  at  a 
point  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  the  left,  whence 
the  Notch,  itself  invisible  but  pushing  up  suc- 
cessive masses  of  smoke,  seemed  the  crater 
of  a  volcano  in  thundering  eruption.  With 
his  glass  he  watched  the  enemy's  guns,  noting 
as  he  could  the  effects  of  Coulter's  fire — if 
Coulter  still  lived  to  direct  it.  He  saw  that 
the  Federal  gunners,  ignoring  the  enemy's 
pieces,  whose  position  could  be  determined  by 
their  smoke  only,  gave  their  whole  attention 
to  the  one  which  maintained  its  place  in  the 
open — the  lawn  in  front  of  the  house,  with 
which  it  was  accurately  in  line.  Over  and 
about  that  hardy  piece  the  shells  exploded  at 
intervals  of  a  few  seconds.  Some  exploded 
in  the  house,  as  could  be  seen  by  thin  ascen- 
sions of  smoke  from  the  breached  roof.  Fig- 
ures of  prostrate  men  and  horses  were  plainly 
visible. 


112       THE  A  FFA IR  A  T  CO  UL  TER'S  NO  TCH. 

"  If  our  fellows  are  doing-  such  good  work 
with  a  single  gun/'  said  the  colonel  to  an 
aide  who  happened  to  be  nearest,  "they  must 
be  suffering  like  the  devil  from  twelve.  Go 
down  and  present  the  commander  of  that 
piece  with  my  congratulations  on  the  accu- 
racy of  his  fire." 

Turning  to  his  adjutant-general  he  said, 
"Did  you  observe  Coulter's  damned  reluc- 
tance to  obey  orders  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  sir,  I  did." 

"Well,  say  nothing  about  it,  please.  I 
don't  think  the  general  will  care  to  make  any 
accusations.  He  will  probably  have  enough 
to  do  in  explaining  his  own  connection  with 
this  uncommon  way  of  amusing  the  real- 
guard  of  a  retreating  enemy." 

A  young  officer  approached  1'rom  below, 
climbing  breathless  up  the  acclivity.  Almost 
before  he  had  saluted,  he  gasped  out: — 

"Colonel,  I  am  directed  by  Colonel  Har- 
mon to  say  that  the  enemy's  guns  are  within 
easy  reach  of  our  rifles,  and  most  of  them 
visible  from  various  points  along  the  ridge. ' ' 

The  brigade  commander  looked  at  him 
without  a  trace  of  interest  in  his  expression. 
>'I  know  it,"  he  said  quietly. 

The  young  adjutant  was  visibly  embarrassed. 


THE  A FFA IR  AT  COUL TER '$  NO TCH.        113 

''Colonel  Harmon  would  like  to  have  per- 
mission to  silence  those  guns,"  he  stammered. 

"So  should  I,"  the  colonel  said  in  the 
same  tone.  "Present  my  compliments  to 
Colonel  Harmon  and  say  to  him  that  the 
general's  orders  not  to  fire  are  still  in  force." 

The  adjutant  saluted  and  retired.  The 
colonel  ground  his  heel  into  the  earth  and 
turned  to  look  again  at  the  enemy's  guns. 

"Colonel,"  said  the  adjutant-general,  "I 
don't  know  that  I  ought  to  say  anything,  but 
there  is  something  wrong  in  all  this.  Do  you 
happen  to  know  that  Captain  Coulter  is  from 
the  South?  " 

"No;  was  he,  indeed?" 

"I  heard  that  last  summer  the  division 
which  the  general  then  commanded  was  in 
the  vicinity  of  Coulter's  home — camped 
there  for  weeks,  and 

"Listen!"  said  the  colonel,  interrupting 
with  an  upward  gesture.  ' '  Do  you  hear 
tkatf" 

"That"  was  the  silence  of  the  Federal 
gun.  The  staff,  the  orderlies,  the  lines  of 
infantry  behind  the  crest — all  had  "heard," 
and  were  looking  curiously  in  the  direction 
of  the  crater,  whence  no  smoke  now  as- 
cended except  desultory  cloudlets  from  the 


I  1 4       THE  A  FFA IR  A  T  CO  UL  TER  S  NO  TCH. 

enemy's  shells.  Then  came  the  blare  of  a 
bugle,  a  faint  rattle  of  wheels;  a  minute 
later  the  sharp  reports  recommenced  with 
double  activity.  The  demolished  gun  had 
been  replaced  with  a  sound  one. 

"Yes,"  said  the  adjutant-general,  resum- 
ing his  narrative,  "the  general  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Coulter's  family.  There 
was  trouble — I  don't  know  the  exact  nature 
of  it — something  about  Coulter's  wife.  She 
is  a  red-hot  Secessionist,  as  they  all  are, 
except  Coulter  himself,  but  she  is  a  good 
wife  and  high-bred  lady.  There  was  a  com- 
plaint to  army  headquarters.  The  general 
was  transferred  to  this  division.  It  is  odd 
that  Coulter's  battery  should  afterward  have 
been  assigned  to  it." 

The  colonel  had  risen  from  the  rock  upon 
which  they  had  been  sitting.  His  eyes  were 
blazing  with  a  generous  indignation. 

."See  here,  Morrison,"  said  he,  looking 
his  gossiping  staff  officer  straight  in  the 
face,  "did  you  get  that  story  from  a  gentle- 
man or  a  liar?" 

"I  don't  want  to  say  how  I  got  it,  Colonel, 
unless  it  is  necessary" — he  was  blushing  a 
trifle — "but  I'll  stake  my  life  upon  its  truth 
in  the  main." 


THE  A FFAIR  AT  COUL TER'S  NO TCH.        115 

The  colonel  turned  toward  a  small  knot 
of  officers  some  distance  away.  "Lieuten- 
ant Williams!"  he  shouted. 

One  of  the  officers  detached  himself  from 
the  group,  and,  coming  forward,  saluted,  say- 
ing: "  Pardon  me,  Colonel,  I  thought  you 
had  been  informed.  Williams  is  dead  down 
there  by  the  gun.  What  can  I  do,  sir?" 

Lieutenant  Williams  was  the  aide  who  had 
had  the  pleasure  of  conveying  to  the  officer 
in  charge  of  the  gun  his  brigade  command- 
er's congratulations. 

"Go,"  said  the  colonel,  "and  direct  the 
withdrawal  of  that  gun  instantly.  Hold!  I'll 
go  myself." 

He  strode  down  the  declivity  toward  the 
rear  of  the  Notch  at  a  break-neck  pace,  over 
rocks  and  through  brambles,  followed  by 
his  little  retinue  in  tumultuous  disorder.  At 
the  foot  of  the  declivity  they  mounted  their 
waiting  animals  and  took  to  the  road  at  a 
lively  trot,  round  a  bend  and  into  the  Notch. 
The  spectacle  \*  hich  they  encountered  there 
was  appalling. 

Within  that  defile,  barely  broad  enough 
for  a  single  gun,  were  piled  the  wrecks  of 
no  fewer  than  four.  They  had  noted  the 
silencing  of  only  the  last  one  disabled — there 


1 1 6       THE  A  FFA IR  AT  COUL  TER'S  NO  TCH. 

had  been  a  lack  of  men  to  replace  it  quickly. 
The  debris  lay  on  both  sides  of  the  road;  the 
men  had  managed  to  keep  an  open  way  be- 
tween, through  which  the  fifth  piece  was  now 
firing.  The  men? — they  looked  like  demons 
of  the  pit!  All  were  hatless,  all  stripped  to 
the  waist,  their  reeking  skins  black  with 
blotches  of  powder  and  spattered  with  gouts 
of  blood.  They  worked  like  madmen,  with 
rammer  and  cartridge,  lever  and  lanyard. 
They  set  their  swollen  shoulders  and  bleeding 
hands  against  the  wheels  at  each  recoil  and 
heaved  the  heavy  gun  back  to  its  place. 
There  were  no  commands;  in  that  awful 
environment  of  whooping  shot,  exploding 
shells,  shrieking  fragments  of  iron,  and  flying 
splinters  of  wood,  none  could  have  been 
heard.  Officers,  if  officers  there  were,  were 
indistinguishable;  all  worked  together — each 
while  he  lasted — governed  by  the  eye. 
When  the  gun  was  sponged,  it  was  loaded; 
when  loaded,  aimed  and  fired.  The  colonel 
observed  something  new  to  his  military  experi- 
ence— something  horrible  and  unnatural:  the 
gun  was  bleeding  at  the  mouth !  In  temporary 
default  of  water,  the  man  sponging  had 
dipped  his  sponge  in  a  pool  of  his  comrades' 
blood.  In  all  this  work  there  was  no  clash- 


THE  A  FFA  IK  AT  CO  UL  TER'S  NO  TCH.        I  1 7 

ing;  the  duty  of  the  instant  was  obvious. 
When  one  fell,  another,  looking  a  trifle 
cleaner,  seemed  to  rise  from  the  earth  in  the 
dead  man's  tracks,  to  fall  in  his  turn. 

With  the  ruined  guns  lay  the  ruined  men 
— alongside  the  wreckage,  under  it  and  atop 
of  it;  and  back  down  the  road — a  ghastly 
procession ! — crept  on  hands  and  knees  such 
of  the  wounded  as  were  able  to-  move.  The 
colonel — he  had  compassionately  sent  his 
cavalcade  to  the  right  about — had  to  ride 
over  those  who  were  entirely  dead  in  order 
not  to  crush  those  who  were  partly  alive. 
Into  that  hell  he  tranquilly  held  his  way, 
rode  up  alongside  the  gun,  and,  in  the  ob- 
scurity of  the  last  discharge,  tapped  upon  the 
cheek  the  man  holding  the  rammer — who 
straightway  fell,  thinking  himself  killed.  A 
fiend  seven  times  damned  sprang  out  of  the 
smoke  to  take  his  place,  but  paused  and 
gazed  up  at  the  mounted  officer  with  an 
unearthly  regard,  his  teeth  flashing  between 
his  black  lips,  his  eyes,  fierce  and  expanded, 
burning  like  coals  beneath  his  bloody  brow. 
The  colonel  made  an  authoritative  gesture 
and  pointed  to  the  rear.  The  fiend  bowed 
in  token  of  obedience.  It  was  Captain 
Coulter. 


I  1 8       THE  A FFA I R  AT  CO UL TER'S  NO TCH. 

Simultaneously  with  the  colonel's  arrest- 
ing sign,  silence  fell  upon  the  whole  field  of 
action.  The  procession  of  missiles  no  longer 
streamed  into  that  defile  of  death;  the  enemy 
also  had  ceased  firing.  His  army  had  been 
gone  for  hours,  and  the  commander  of  his 
rear  guard,  who  had  held  his  position  peri- 
lously long  in  hope  to  silence  the  Federal 
fire,  at  that  strange  moment  had  silenced  his 
own.  "I  was  not  aware  of  the  breadth  of 
my  authority,"  thought  the  colonel,  face- 
tiously, riding  forward  to  the  crest  to  see 
what  had  really  happened. 

An  hour  later  his  brigade  was  in  bivouac 
on  the  enemy's  ground,  and  its  idlers  were 
examining,  with  something  of  awe,  as  the 
faithful  inspect  a  saint's  relics,  a  score  of 
straddling  dead  horses  and  three  disabled 
guns,  all  spiked.  The  fallen  men  had  been 
carried  away ;  their  crushed  and  broken  bodies 
would  have  given  too  great  satisfaction. 

Naturally,  the  colonel  established  himself 
and  his  military  family  in  the  plantation 
house.  It  was  somewhat  shattered,  but  it 
was  better  than  the  open  air.  The  furniture 
was  greatly  deranged  and  broken.  The 
walls  and  ceilings  were  knocked  away  here 
and  there,  and  there  was  a  lingering  odor  of 


THE  A  FFA IR  AT  CO  UL  TER'S  NO  TCH.         1 1 9 

powder  smoke  everywhere.  The  beds,  the 
closets  of  women's  clothing,  the  cupboards 
were  not  greatly  damaged.  The  new  ten- 
ants for  a  night  made  themselves  comfort- 
able, and  the  practical  effacement  of  Coul- 
ter's battery  supplied  them  with  an  interest- 
ing topic. 

During  supper  that  evening  an  orderly  of 
the  escort  showed  himself  into  the  dining 
room  and  asked  permission  to  speak  to  the 
colonel. 

"What  is  it,  Barbour?"  said  that  officer 
pleasantly,  having  overheard  the  request. 

''Colonel,  there  is  something  wrong  in  the 
cellar;  I  don't  know  what — somebody  there. 
I  was  down  there  rummaging  about." 

"I  will  go  down  and  see,"  said  a  staff  offi- 
cer, rising. 

"So  will  I,"  the  colonel  said;  "let  the 
others  remain.  Lead  on,  orderly." 

They  took  a  candle  from  the  table  and  de- 
scended the  cellar  stairs,  the  orderly  in  visi- 
ble trepidation.  The  candle  made  but  a 
feeble  light,  but  presently,  as  they  advanced, 
its  narrow  circle  of  illumination  revealed  a 
human  figure  seated  on  the  ground  against 
the  black  stone  wall  which  they  were  skirting, 
its  knees  elevated,  its  head  bowed  sharply 


12O       THE  AFFAIR  AT  COULTER'S  NOTCtf. 

forward.  The  face,  which  should  have  been 
seen  in  profile,  was  invisible,  for  the  man  was 
bent  so  far  forward  that  his  long  hair  con- 
cealed it;  and,  strange  to  relate,  the  beard, 
of  a  much  darker  hue,  fell  in  a  great  tangled 
mass  and  lay  along  the  ground  at  his  feet. 
They  involuntarily  paused;  then  the  colonel, 
taking  the  candle  from  the  orderly's  shaking 
hand,  approached  the  man  and  attentively 
considered  him.  The  long  dark  beard  was 
the  hair  of  a  woman — dead.  The  dead 
woman  clasped  in  her  arms  a  dead  babe. 
Both  were  clasped  in  the  arms  of  the  man, 
pressed  against  his  breast,  against  his  lips. 
There  was  blood  in  the  hair  of  the  woman; 
there  was  blood  in  the  hair  of  the  man.  A 
yard  away  lay  an  infant's  foot.  It  was  near 
an  irregular  depression  in  the  beaten  earth 
which  formed  the  cellar's  floor — a  fresh  ex- 
cavation with  a  convex  bit  of  iron,  having 
jagged  edges,  visible  in  one  of  the  sides. 
The  colonel  held  the  light  as  high  as  he 
could.  The  floor  of  the  room  above  was 
broken  through,  the  splinters  pointing  at  all 
angles  downward.  ' '  This  casemate  is  not 
bomb-proof,"  said  the  colonel  gravely;  it 
did  not  occur  to  him  that  his  summing  up  of 
the  matter  had  any  levity  in  it. 


THE  A  FFA IR  AT  CO  UL  TER'S  NO  TCH.        I  2 1 

They  stood  about  the  group  awhile  in  si- 
lence; the  staff  officer  was  thinking  of  his 
unfinished  supper,  the  orderly  of  what  might 
possibly  be  in  one  of  the  casks  on  the  other 
side  of  the  cellar.  Suddenly  the  man,  whom 
they  had  thought  dead,  raised  his  head  and 
gazed  tranquilly  into  their  faces.  His  com- 
plexion was  coal  black;  the  cheeks  were  ap- 
parently tattooed  in  irregular  sinuous  lines 
from  the  eyes  downward.  The  lips,  too,  were 
white,  like  those  of  a  stage  negro.  There 
was  blood  upon  his  forehead. 

The  staff  officer  drew  back  a  pace,  the  or- 
derly two  paces. 

"What  are  you  doing  here,  my  man?" 
said  the  colonel,  unmoved. 

"This  house  belongs  to  me,  sir,"  was  the 
reply,  civilly  delivered. 

"  To  you  ?     Ah,  I  see !     And  these  ? ' ' 

"My  wife  and  child.  I  am  Captain  Coul- 
ter." 


A   TOUGH    TUSSLE. 

E  night  in  the  autumn  of  1861  a  man 
sat  alone  in  the  heart  of  a  forest  in 
Western  Virginia.  The  region  was  then,  and 
still  is,  one  of  the  wildest  on  the  continent 
— the  Cheat  Mountain  country.  There  was 
no  lack  of  people  close  at  hand,  however; 
within  two  miles  of  where  the  man  sat  was 
the  now  silent  camp  of  a  whole  Federal 
brigade.  Somewhere  about — it  might  be 
still  nearer — was  a  force  of  the  enemy,  the 
numbers  unknown.  It  was  this  uncertainty 
as  to  its  numbers  and  position  that  ac- 
counted for  the  man's  presence  in  that  lonely 
spot;  he  was  a  young  officer  of  a  Federal 
infantry  regiment,  and  his  business  there  was 
to  guard  his  sleeping  comrades  in  the  camp 
against  a  surprise.  He  was  in  command  of  a 
detachment  of  men  constituting  a  picket 
guard.  These  men  he  had  stationed  just  at 
nightfall  in  an  irregular  line,  determined  by 
the  nature  of  the  ground,  several  hundred 

(123) 


124  A   TOUGH  TUSSLE. 

yards  in  front  of  where  he  now  sat.  The  line 
ran  through  the  forest,  among  the  rocks  and 
laurel  thickets,  the  men  fifteen  or  twenty 
paces  apart,  all  in  concealment  and  under 
injunction  of  strict  silence  and  unremitting 
vigilance.  In  four  hours,  if  nothing  oc- 
curred, they  would  be  relieved  by  a  fresh 
detachment  from  the  reserve  now  resting  in 
care  of  its  captain  some  distance  away  to 
the  left  and  rear.  Before  stationing  his  men 
the  young  officer  of  whom  we  are  speaking 
had  pointed  out  to  his  two  sergeants  the  spot 
at  which  he  would  be  found  in  case  it  should 
be  necessary  to  consult  him,  or  if  his  presence 
at  the  front  line  should  be  required. 

It  was  a  quiet  enough  spot — the  fork  of 
an  old  wood  road,  on  the  two  branches  of 
which,  prolonging  themselves  deviously  for 
ward  in  the  dim  moonlight,  the  sergeants 
were  themselves  stationed,  a  few  paces  in 
rear  of  the  line.  If  driven  sharply  back  by 
a  sudden  onset  of  the  enemy — and  pickets 
are  not  expected  to  make  a  stand  after  firing 
— the  men  would  come  into  the  converg- 
ing roads,  and,  naturally  following  them  to 
their  point  of  intersection,  could  be  rallied 
and  ''formed."  In  his  small  way  the  young 
lieutenant  was  something  of  a  strategist;  il 


A    TOUGH  TUSSLE.  125 

Napoleon  had  planned  as  intelligently  at 
Waterloo,  he  would  have  won  the  battle  and 
been  overthrown  later. 

Second  Lieutenant  Brainerd  Byring  was 
a  brave  and  efficient  officer,  young  and  com- 
paratively inexperienced  as  he  was  in  the 
business  of  killing  his  fellow-men.  He  had 
enlisted  in  the  very  first  days  of  the  war  as  a 
private,  with  no  military  knowledge  whatever, 
had  been  made  first  sergeant  of  his  company 
on  account  of  his  education  and  engaging 
manner,  and  had  been  lucky  enough  to  lose 
his  captain  by  a  Confederate  bullet;  in  the 
resulting  promotions  he  had  got  a  com- 
mission. He  had  been  in  several  engage- 
ments, such  as  they  were — at  Philippi,  Rich 
Mountain,  Carrick's  Ford  and  Greenbrier — 
and  had  borne  himself  with  such  gallantry  as 
not  to  attract  attention  of  his  superior  officers. 
The  exhilaration  of  battle  was  agreeable  to 
him,  but  the  sight  of  the  dead,  with  their 
clay  faces,  blank  eyes,  and  stiff  bodies,  which, 
when  not  unnaturally  shrunken,  were  un- 
naturally swollen,  had  always  intolerably 
affected  him.  He  felt  toward  them  a  kind  of 
reasonless  antipathy  which  was  something 
more  than  the  physical  and  spiritual  repug- 
nance common  to  us  all.  Doubtless  this 


126  A   TOUGH  TUSSLE. 

feeling  was  due  to  his  unusually  acute  sensi- 
bilities— his  keen  sense  of  the  beautiful,  which 
these  hideous  things  outraged.  Whatever 
may  have  been  the  cause,  he  could  not  look 
upon  a  dead  body  without  a  loathing  which 
had  in  it  an  element  of  resentment.  What 
others  have  respected  as  the  dignity  of  death 
had  to  him  no  existence — was  altogether  un- 
thinkable. Death  was  a  thing  to  be  hated. 
It  was  not  picturesque,  it  had  no  tender  and 
solemn  side — a  dismal  thing,  hideous  in  all 
its  manifestations  and  suggestions.  Lieuten- 
ant Byring  was  a  braver  man  than  anybody 
knew,  for  nobody  knew  his  horror  of  that 
which  he  was  ever  ready  to  encounter. 

Having  posted  his  men,  instructed  his 
sergeants,  and  retired  to  his  station,  he  seated 
himself  on  a  log,  and,  with  senses  all  alert, 
began  his  vigil.  For  greater  ease  he  loosened 
his  sword  belt,  and,  taking  his  heavy  revolver 
from  his  holster,  laid  it  on  the  log  beside  him. 
He  felt  very  comfortable,  though  he  hardly 
gave  the  fact  a  thought,  so  intently  did  he 
listen  for  any  sound  from  the  front  which 
might  have  a  menacing  significance — a  shout, 
a  shot,  or  the  footfall  of  one  of  his  sergeants 
coming  to  apprise  him  of  something  worth 
knowing.  From  the  vast,  invisible  ocean  of 


A    TOUGH  TUSSLE  12J 

moonlight  overhead  fell,  here  and  there,  a 
slender,  broken  stream  that  seemed  to  plash 
against  the  intercepting  branches  and  trickle 
to  earth,  forming  small  white  pools  among 
the  clumps  of  laurel.  But  these  leaks  were 
lew  and  served  only  to  accentuate  the  black- 
ness of  his  environment,  which  his  imagina- 
tion found  it  easy  to  people  with  all  manner 
of  unfamiliar  shapes,  menacing,  uncanny,  or 
merely  grotesque. 

He  to  whom  the  portentous  conspiracy  of 
night  and  solitude  and  silence  in  the  heart  of 
a  great  forest  is  not  an  unknown  experience 
needs  not  to  be  told  what  another  world  it 
all  is — how  even  the  most  commonplace  and 
familiar  objects  take  on  another  character. 
The  trees  group  themselves  differently;  they 
draw  closer  together,  as  if  in  fear.  The  very 
silence  has  another  quality  than  the  silence 
of  the  day.  And  it  is  full  of  half-heard  whis- 
pers, whispers  that  startle — ghosts  of  sounds 
long  dead.  There  are  living  sounds,  too, 
such  as  are  never  heard  under  other  condi- 
tions: notes  of  strange  night  birds,  the  cries 
of  small  animals  in  sudden  encounters  with 
stealthy  foes,  or  in  their  dreams,  a  rustling 
in  the  dead  leaves— it  may  be  the  leap  of  a 
wood  rat,  it  may  be  the  footstep  of  a  panther. 


128  A   TOUGH  TUSSLE. 

What  caused  the  breaking  of  that  twig? — 
what  the  low,  alarmed  twittering  in  that 
bushful  of  birds?  There  are  sounds  without 
a  name,  forms  without  substance,  translations 
in  space  of  objects  which  have  not  been  seen 
to  move,  movements  wherein  nothing  is  ob- 
served to  change  its  place.  Ah,  children  of 
the  sunlight  and  the  gaslight,  how  little  you 
know  of  the  world  in  which  you  live! 

Surrounded  at  a  little  distance  by  armed 
and  watchful  friends,  Byring  felt  utterly  alone. 
Yielding  himself  to  the  solemn  and  myste- 
rious spirit  of  the  time  and  place,  he  had 
forgotten  the  nature  of  his  connection  with 
the  visible  and  audible  aspects  and  phases  of 
the  night.  The  forest  was  boundless;  men 
and  the  habitations  of  men  did  not  exist. 
The  universe  was  one  primeval  mystery  of 
darkness,  without  form  and  void,  himself  the 
sole  dumb  questioner  of  its  eternal  secret. 
Absorbed  in  the  thoughts  born  of  this  mood, 
he  suffered  the  time  to  slip  away  unnoted. 
Meantime  the  infrequent  patches  of  white 
light  lying  amongst  the  undergrowth  had 
undergone  changes  of  size,  form,  and  place. 
In  one  of  them  near  by,  just  at  the  roadside, 
his  eye  fell  upon  an  object  which  he  had  not 
previously  observed.  It  was  almost  before 


A    TOUGH  TUSSLE.  129 

his  face  as  he  sat;  he  could  have  sworn  that 
it  had  not  before  been  there.  It  was  partly 
covered  in  shadow,  but  he  could  see  that  it 
was  a  human  figure.  Instinctively  he  ad- 
justed the  clasp  of  his  sword  belt  and  laid 
hold  of  his  pistol — again  he  was  in  a  world 
of  war,  by  occupation  an  assassin. 

The  figure  did  not  move.  Rising,  pistol 
in  hand,  he  approached.  The  figure  lay 
upon  its  back,  its  upper  part  in  shadow,  but 
standing  above  it  and  looking  down  upon  the 
face,  he  saw  that  it  was  a  dead  body.  He 
shuddered  and  turned  from  it  with  a  feeling 
of  sickness  and  disgust,  resumed  his  seat 
upon  the  log,  and,  forgetting  military  pru- 
dence, struck  a  match  and  lit  a  cigar.  In 
the  sudden  blackness  that  followed  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  flame  he  felt  a  sense  of  re- 
lief; he  could  no  longer  see  the  object  of 
his  aversion.  Nevertheless,  he  kept  his  eyes 
set  in  that  direction  until  it  appeared  again 
with  growing  distinctness.  It  seemed  to  have 
moved  a  trifle  nearer. 

' '  Damn  the  thing ! "  he  muttered.  ' ' What 
does  it  want?" 

It  did  not  appear  to  be  in  need  of  anything 
but  a  soul. 

Byring  turned  away  his  eyes  and  began 
9 


130  A    TOUGH  TUSSLE. 

humming  a  tune,  but  he  broke  off  in  the 
middle  of  a  bar  and  looked  at  the  dead  man. 
Its  presence  annoyed  him,  though  he  could 
hardly  have  had  a  quieter  neighbor.  He 
was  conscious,  too,  of  a  vague,  indefinable 
feeling  which  was  new  to  him.  It  was  not 
fear  but  rather  a  sense  of  the  supernatural — 
in  which  he  did  not  at  all  believe. 

"I  have  inherited  it, "  he  said  to  himself. 
"I  suppose  it  will  require  a  thousand  years — 
perhaps  ten  thousand — for  humanity  to  out- 
grow this  feeling.  Where  and  when  did  it 
originate?  Away  back,  probably,  in  what  is 
called  the  cradle  of  the  human  race — the 
plains  of  Central  Asia.  What  we  inherit  as 
a  superstition  our  barbarous  ancestors  must 
have  held  as  a  reasonable  conviction.  Doubt- 
less they  believed  themselves  justified  by  facts 
whose  nature  we  cannot  even  conjecture  in 
thinking  a  dead  body  a  malign  thing  en- 
dowed with  some  strange  power  of  mischief, 
with  perhaps  a  will  and  a  purpose  to  exert  it. 
Possibly  they  had  some  awful  form  of  religion 
of  which  that  was  one  of  the  chief  doctrines, 
sedulously  taught  by  their  priesthood,  just  as 
ours  teach  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  As 
the  Aryan  moved  westward  to  and  through 
the  Caucasus  passes  and  spread  over  Europe, 


A   TOUGH  TUSSL£.  131 

new  conditions  of  life  must  have  resulted  in 
the  formulation  of  new  religions.  The  old 
belief  in  the  malevolence  of  the  dead  body 
was  lost  from  the  creeds,  and  even  perished 
from  tradition,  but  it  left  its  heritage  of  terror, 
which  is  transmitted  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration— is  as  much  a  part  of  us  as  our  blood 
and  bones." 

In  following  out  his  thought  he  had  for- 
gotten that  which  suggested  it;  but  now  his 
eye  fell  again  upon  the  corpse.  The  shadow 
had  now  altogether  uncovered  it.  He  saw 
the  sharp  profile,  the  chin  in  the  air,  the 
whole  face,  ghastly  white  in  the  moonlight. 
The  clothing  was  gray,  the  uniform  of  a  Con- 
federate soldier.  The  coat  and  waistcoat,  un- 
buttoned, had  fallen  away  on  each  side,  ex- 
posing the  white  shirt.  The  chest  seemed 
unnaturally  prominent,  but  the  abdomen  had 
sunk  in,  leaving  a  sharp  projection  at  the  line 
of  the  lower  ribs.  The  arms  were  extended, 
the  left  knee  was  thrust  upward.  The  whole 
posture  impressed  Byring  as  having  been 
studied  with  a  view  to  the  horrible. 

' ' Bah ! "  he  exclaimed ;  "he  was  an  actor — 
he  knows  how  to  be  dead." 

He  drew  away  his  eyes,  directing  them 
resolutely  along  one  of  the  roads  leading  to 


1^2  A    TOUGH  TUSSLE 

the  front,  and  resumed  his  philosophizing 
where  he  had  left  off. 

"It  may  be  that  our  Central  Asian  an- 
cestors had  not  the  custom  of  burial.  In 
that  case  it  is  easy  to  understand  their  fear 
of  the  dead,  who  really  were  a  menace  and 
an  evil.  They  bred  pestilences.  Children 
were  taught  to  avoid  the  places  where  they 
lay,  and  to  run  away  if  by  inadvertence  they 
came  near  a  corpse.  I  think,  indeed,  I'd 
better  go  away  from  this  chap. ' ' 

He  half  rose  to  do  so,  then  remembered 
that  he  told  his  men  in  front,  and  the  officer 
in  the  rear  who  was  to  relieve  him,  that  he 
could  at  any  time  be  found  at  that  spot.  It 
was  a  matter  of  pride,  too.  If  he  abandoned 
his  post,  he  feared  they  would  think  he  feared 
the  corpse.  He  was  no  coward,  and  he  was 
not  going  to  incur  anybody's  ridicule.  So 
he  again  seated  himself,  and,  to  prove  his 
courage,  looked  boldly  at  the  body.  The 
right  arm — the  one  farthest  from  him — was 
now  in  shadow.  He  could  barely  see  the 
hand  which,  he  had  before  observed,  lay  at 
the  root  of  a  clump  of  laurel.  There  had 
been  no  change,  a  fact  which  gave  him  a  cer- 
tain comfort,  he  could  not  have  said  why. 
He  did  not  at  once  remove  his  eyes;  that 


A    TOUGH   TUSSLE.  133 

which  we  do  not  wish  to  see  has  a  strange 
fascination,  sometimes  irresistible.  Of  the 
woman  who  covers  her  face  with  her  hands, 
and  looks  between  the  fingers,  let  it  be  said 
that  the  wits  have  dealt  with  "her  not  alto- 
gether justly. 

Byring  suddenly  became  conscious  of  a 
pain  in  his  right  hand.  He  withdrew  his 
eyes  from  his  enemy  and  looked  at  it  He 
was  grasping  the  hilt  of  his  drawn  sword  so 
tightly  that  it  hurt  him.  He  observed,  too, 
that  he  was  leaning  forward  in  a  strained  at- 
titude— crouching  like  a  gladiator  ready  to 
spring  at  the  throat  of  an  antagonist.  His 
teeth  were  clenched,  and  he  was  breathing 
hard.  This  matter  was  soon  set  right,  and  as 
his  muscles  relaxed  and  he  drew  a  long  breath, 
he  felt  keenly  enough  the  ludicrousness  of  the 
incident.  It  affected  him  to  laughter.  Heav- 
ens! what  sound  was  that? — what  mindless 
devil  was  uttering  an  unholy  glee  in  mockery 
of  human  merriment?  He  sprang  to  his 
feet  and  looked  about  him,  not  recognizing 
his  own  laugh. 

He  could  no  longer  conceal  from  himself 
the  horrible  fact  of  his  cowardice;  he  was 
thoroughly  frightened!  He  would  have 
run  from  the  spot,  but  his  legs  refused  their 


134  A    TOUGH  TUSSLE. 

office;  they  gave  way  beneath  him,  and  he 
sat  again  upon  the  log,  violently  trembling. 
His  face  was  wet,  his  whole  body  bathed  in  a 
chill  perspiration.  He  could  not  even  cry 
out.  Distinctly  he  heard  behind  him  a 
stealthy  tread,  as  of  some  wild  animal,  and 
dared  not  look  over  his  shoulder.  Had  the 
soulless  living  joined  forces  with  the  soulless 
dead? — was  it  an  animal?  Ah,  if  he  could 
but  be  assured  of  that!  But  by  no  effort  of 
will  could  he  now  unfix  his  gaze  from  the 
face  of  the  dead  man. 

I  repeat  that  Lieutenant  Byring  was  a 
brave  and  intelligent  man.  But  what  would 
you  have?  Shall  a  man  cope,  single-handed, 
with  so  monstrous  an  alliance  as  that  of  night 
and  solitude  and  silence  and  the  dead? — while 
an  incalculable  host  of  his  own  ancestors 
shriek  into  the  ear  of  his  spirit  their  cow- 
ard counsel,  sing  their  doleful  death  songs 
in  his  heart  and  disarm  his  very  blood  of 
all  its  iron  ?  The  odds  are  too  great — cour- 
age was  not  made  for  such  rough  use  as  that. 

One  sole  conviction  now  had  the  man  in 
possession:  that  the  body  had  moved.  It  lay 
nearer  to  the  edge  of  its  plot  of  light — there 
could  be  no  doubt  of  it.  It  had  also  moved 
its  arms,  for,  look,  they  are  both  in  the 


A    TOUGH  TUSSLE  Ii)$ 

shadow !  A  breath  of  cold  air  struck  Byring 
full  in  the  face;  the  branches  of  trees  above 
him  stirred  and  moaned.  A  strongly-defined 
shadow  passed  across  the  face  of  the  dead, 
left  it  luminous,  passed  back  upon  it  and  left 
it  half  obscured.  The  horrible  thing  was  vis- 
ibly moving.  At  that  moment  a  single  shot 
rang  out  upon  the  picket  line — a  lonelier  and 
louder,  though  more  distant,  shot  than  ever 
had  been  heard  by  mortal  ear!  It  broke  the 
spell  of  that  enchanted  man;  it  slew  the  si- 
lence and  the  solitude,  dispersed  the  hinder- 
ing host  from  Central  Asia,  and  released  his 
modern  manhood.  With  a  cry  like  that  of 
some  great  bird  pouncing  upon  its  prey,  he 
sprang  forward,  hot-hearted  for  action! 

Shot  after  shot  now  came  from  the  front. 
There  were  shoutings  and  confusion,  hoof 
beats  and  desultory  cheers.  Away  to  the 
rear,  in  the  sleeping  camp,  was  a  singing  of 
bugles  and  a  grumble  of  drums.  Pushing 
through  the  thickets  on  either  side  the  roads 
came  the  Federal  pickets,  in  full  retreat,  fir- 
ing backward  at  random  as  they  ran.  A 
straggling  group  that  had  followed  back  one 
of  the  roads,  as  instructed,  suddenly  sprang 
away  into  the  bushes  as  half  a  hundred  horse- 
men thundered  by  them,  striking  wildly  with 


136  A   TOUGH  TUSSLE. 

their  sabers  as  they  passed.  At  headlong- 
speed  these  mounted  madmen  shot  past  the 
spot  where  Byring  had  sat,  and  vanished 
round  an  angle  of  the  road,  shouting  and 
firing  their  pistols.  A  moment  later  there 
was  a  roar  of  musketry,  followed  by  dropping 
shots — they  had  encountered  the  reserve 
guard  in  line;  and  back  they  came  in  dire 
confusion,  with  here  and  there  an  empty  sad- 
dle and  many  a  maddened  horse,  bullet-stung, 
snorting  and  plunging  with  pain.  It  was  all 
over — ' '  an  affair  of  outposts. ' ' 

The  line  was  re-established  with  fresh  men, 
the  roll  called,  the  stragglers  were  reformed. 
The  Federal  commander,  with  a  part  of  his 
staff,  imperfectly  clad,  appeared  upon  the 
scene,  asked  a  few  questions,  looked  exceed- 
ingly wise,  and  retired.  After  standing  at 
arms  for  an  hour,  the  brigade  in  camp 
' '  swore  a  prayer  or  two ' '  and  went  to  bed. 

Early  the  next  morning  a  fatigue  party, 
commanded  by  a  captain  and  accompanied 
by  a  surgeon,  searched  the  ground  for  dead 
and  wounded.  At  the  fork  of  the  road,  a  lit- 
tle to  one  side,  they  found  two  bodies  lying 
close  together — that  of  a  Federal  officer  and 
that  of  a  Confederate  private.  The  officer  had 
died  of  a  sword-thrust  through  the  heart,  but 


A   TOUGIT  TUSSLE.  137 

not,  apparently,  until  he  had  inllicted  upon 
his  enemy  no  fewer  than  five  dreadful  wounds. 
The  dead  officer  lay  on  his  face  in  a  pool  of 
blood,  the  weapon  still  in  his  breast.  They 
turned  him  on  his  back  and  the  surgeon  re- 
moved it. 

"Gad  !  "  said  the  captain — "it  is  Byring!" 
— adding,  with  a  glance  at  the  other,  ' '  They 
had  a  tough  tussle. ' ' 

The  surgeon  was  examining  the  sword.  It 
was  that  of  a  line  officer  of  Federal  infantry 
— exactly  like  the  one  worn  by  the  captain. 
It  was,  in  fact,  Byring's  own.  The  only  other 
weapon  discovered  was  an  undischarged  re- 
volver in  the  dead  officer's  belt. 

The  surgeon  laid  down  the  sword  and  ap- 
proached the  other  body.  It  was  frightfully 
gashed  and  stabbed,  but  there  was  no  blood. 
He  took  hold  of  the  left  foot  and  tried  to 
straighten  the  leg.  In  the  effort  the  body 
was  displaced.  The  dead  do  not  wish  to  be 
moved  when  comfortable — it  protested  with 
a  faint,  sickening  odor.  Where  it  had  lain 
were  a  few  maggots,  manifesting  an  imbecile 
activity. 

The  surgeon  looked  at  the  captain.  The 
captain  looked  at  the  surgeon. 


THE   COUP    DE    GRACE. 

HPHE  fighting  had  been  hard  and  continuous, 
that  was  attested  by  all  the  senses.  The 
very  taste  of  battle  was  in  the  air.  All  was 
now  over;  it  remained  only  to  succor  the 
wounded  and  bury  the  dead — to  "tidy  up  a 
bit,"  as  the  humorist  of  a  burying  squad  put 
it.  A  good  deal  of  ' '  tidying  up ' '  was  re- 
quired. As  far  as  one  could  see  through  the 
forest,  between  the  splintered  trees,  lay  wrecks 
of  men  and  horses.  Among  them  moved  the 
stretcher-bearers,  gathering  and  carrying  away 
the  few  who  showed  signs  of  life.  Most  of 
the  wounded  had  died  of  exposure  while  the 
right  to  minister  to  their  wants  was  in  dispute. 
It  is  an  army  regulation  that  the  wounded 
must  wait;  the  best  way  to  care  for  them  is  to 
win  the  battle.  It  must  be  confessed  that 
victory  is  a  distinct  advantage  to  a  man  re- 
quiring attention,  but  many  do  not  live  to 
avail  themselves  of  it. 

The   dead   were   collected  in  groups  of  a 

(139) 


I4o 


THE  COUP  DE  GRACE. 


dozen  or  a  score  and  laid  side  by  side  in  rows 
while  the  trenches  were  dug  to  receive  them. 
Some,  found  at  too  great  a  distance  from 
these  rallying  points,  were  buried  where  they 
lay.  There  was  little  attempt  at  identifica- 
tion, though  in  most  cases,  the  burying  parties 
being  detailed  to  glean  the  same  ground 
which  they  had  assisted  to  reap,  the  names  of 
the  victorious  dead  were  known  and  listed. 
The  enemy's  fallen  had  to  be  content  with 
counting.  But  of  that  they  got  enough:  many 
of  them  were  counted  several  times,  and  the 
total,  as  given  in  the  official  report  of  the  vic- 
torious commander,  denoted  rather  a  hope 
than  a  result. 

At  some  little  distance  from  the  spot  where 
one  of  the  burying  parties  had  established 
its  "  bivouac  of  the  dead,"  a  man  in  the  uni- 
form of  a  Federal  officer  stood  leaning  against 
a  tree.  From  his  feet  upward  to  his  neck  his 
attitude  was  that  of  weariness  reposing;  but 
he  turned  his  head  uneasily  from  side  to  side; 
his  mind  was  apparently  not  at  rest.  He  was 
perhaps  uncertain  in  what  direction  to  go;  he 
was  not  likely  to  remain  long  where  he  was, 
for  already  the  level  rays  of  the  setting  sun 
struggled  redly  through  the  open  spaces  of 
the  wood,  and  the  weary  soldiers  were  quit- 


THE  COUP  DE  GRACE.  141 

ting  their  task  for  the  day.  He  would  hardly 
make  a  night  of  it  alone  there  among  the 
dead.  Nine  men  in  ten  whom  you  meet  af- 
ter a  battle  inquire  the  way  to  some  fraction 
of  the  army — as  if  anyone  could  know. 
Doubtless  this  officer  was  lost.  After  resting 
himself  a  moment,  he  would  follow  one  of  the 
retiring  burial  squads. 

When  all  were  gone,  he  walked  straight 
away  into  the  forest  toward  the  red  west,  its 
light  staining  his  face  like  blood.  The  air  of 
confidence  with  which  he  now  strode  along 
showed  that  he  was  on  familiar  ground;  he 
had  recovered  his  bearings.  The  dead  on  his 
right  and  on  his  left  were  unregarded  as  he 
passed.  An  occasional  low  moan  from  some 
sorely-stricken  wretch  whom  the  relief  parties 
had  not  reached,  and  who  would  have  to  pass 
a  comfortless  night  beneath  the  stars  with  his 
thirst  to  keep  him  company,  was  equally  un- 
heeded. What,  indeed,  could  the  officer  have 
done,  being  no  surgeon  and  having  no  water? 
At  the  head  of  a  shallow  ravine,  a  mere  de- 
pression of  the  ground,  lay  a  small  group  of 
bodies.  He  saw,  and,  swerving  suddenly 
from  his  course,  walked  rapidly  toward  them. 
Scanning  each  one  sharply  as  he  passed,  he 
stopped  at  last  above  one  which  lay  at  a  slight 


142  THE  COUP  DE  GRACE. 

remove  from  the  others,  near  a  clump  of 
small  trees.  He  looked  at  it  narrowly.  It 
seemed  to  stir.  He  stooped  and  laid  his  hand 
upon  its  face.  It  screamed. 

The  officer  was  Captain  Downing  Madvvell, 
of  a  Massachusetts  regiment  of  infantry,  a 
daring  and  intelligent  soldier,  an  honorable 
man. 

In  the  regiment  were  two  brothers  named 
Halcrow — Caffal  and  Creede  Halcrow.  Carfal 
Halcrow  was  a  sergeant  in  Captain  Madwell's 
company,  and  these  two  men,  the  sergeant 
and  the  captain,  were  devoted  friends.  In  so 
far  as  disparity  of  rank,  difference  in  duties, 
and  considerations  of  military  discipline  would 
permit,  they  were  commonly  together.  They 
had,  indeed,  grown  up  together  from  child- 
hood. A  habit  of  the  heart  is  not  easily 
broken  oft.  Caffal  Halcrow  had  nothing  mili- 
tary in  his  taste  or  disposition,  but  the  thought 
of  separation  from  his  friend  was  disagreeable; 
he  enlisted  in  the  company  in  which  Madwell 
was  second  lieutenant.  Each  had  taken  two 
steps  upward  in  rank,  but  between  the  high- 
est non-commissioned  and  the  lowest  com- 
missioned officer  the  social  gulf  is  deep  and 
wide,  and  the  old  relation  was  maintained 
with  difficulty  and  a  difference. 


THE  COUP  DE  GRACE.  143 

Creede  Halcrovv,  the  brother  of  Caffal,  was 
the  major  of  the  regiment — a  cynical,  satur- 
nine man,  between  whom  and  Captain  Mad- 
well  there  was  a  natural  antipathy  which 
circumstances  had  nourished  and  strengthened 
to  an  active  animosity.  But  for  the  restrain- 
ing influence  of  their  mutual  relation  to  Caffal, 
these  two  patriots  would  doubtless  have  en- 
deavored to  deprive  their  country  of  one 
another's  services. 

At  the  opening  of  the  battle  that  morning, 
the  regiment  was  performing  outpost  duty  a 
mile  away  from  the  main  army.  It  was  at- 
tacked and  nearly  surrounded  in  the  forest, 
but  stubbornly  held  its  ground.  During  a 
lull  in  the  fighting,  Major  Halcrovv  came  to 
Captain  Madwell.  The  two  exchanged 
formal  salutes,  and  the  major  said:  "Captain, 
the  colonel  directs  that  you  push  your  com- 
pany to  the  head  of  this  ravine  and  hold  your 
place  there  until  recalled.  I  need  hardly 
apprise  you  of  the  dangerous  character  of  the 
movement,  but  if  you  wish,  you  can,  I  sup- 
pose, turn  over  the  command  to  your  first 
lieutenant.  I  was  not,  however,  directed  to 
authorize  the  substitution;  it  is  merely  a  sug- 
gestion of  my  own,  unofficially  made." 

To  this  deadly  insult  Captain  Madwell 
coolly  replied: — 


144  '    THE  coup  DE  GRACE. 

"Sir,  I  invite  you  to  accompany  the  move- 
ment. A  mounted  officer  would  be  a  con- 
spicuous mark,  and  I  have  long  held  the. 
opinion  that  it  would  be  better  if  you  were 
dead." 

The  art  of  repartee  was  cultivated  in  mili- 
tary circles  as  early  as  1862. 

A  half  hour  later  Captain  Madwell's  com- 
pany was  driven  from  its  position  at  the  head 
of  the  ravine,  with  a  loss  of  one-third  its 
number.  Among  the  fallen  was  Sergeant 
Halcrow.  The  regiment  was  soon  afterward 
forced  back  to  the  main  line,  and  at  the  close 
of  the  battle  was  miles  away.  The  captain 
was  now  standing  at  the  side  of  his  subordi- 
nate and  friend. 

Sergeant  Halcrow  was  mortally  hurt.  His 
clothing  was  deranged;  it  seemed  to  have 
been  violently  torn  apart,  exposing  the  ab- 
domen. Some  of  the  buttons  of  his  jacket 
had  been  pulled  off  and  lay  on  the  ground 
beside  him,  and  fragments  of  his  other  gar- 
ments were  strewn  about  His  leather  belt 
was  parted,  and  had  apparently  been  dragged 
from  beneath  him  as  he  lay.  There  had  been 
no  very  great  effusion  of  blood.  The  only 
visible  wound  was  a  wide,  ragged  opening  in 
the  abdomen.  It  was  defiled  with  earth  and 


THE  COUP  DE  GRACE.  145 

dead  leaves.  Protruding  from  it  was  a  lacer- 
ated end  of  the  small  intestine.  In  all  his 
experience  Captain  Madwell  had  not  seen  a 
wound  like  this.  He  could  neither  conjecture 
how  it  was  made  nor  explain  the  attendant 
circumstances — the  strangely  torn  clothing, 
the  parted  belt,  the  besmirching  of  the  white 
skin.  He  knelt  and  made  a  closer  examina- 
tion. When  he  rose  to  his  feet,  he  turned  his 
eyes  in  various  directions  as  if  looking  for  an 
enemy.  Fifty  yards  away,  on  the  crest  of  a 
low,  thinly-wooded  hill,  he  saw  several  dark 
objects  moving  about  among  the  fallen  men — 
a  herd  of  swine.  One  stood  with  its  back  to 
him,  its  shoulders  sharply  elevated.  Its  fore- 
feet were  upon  a  human  body,  its  head  was 
depressed  and  invisible.  The  bristly  ridge  of 
its  chine  showed  black  against  the  red  west. 
Captain  Madwell  drew  away  his  eyes  and 
fixed  them  again  upon  the  thing  which  had 
been  his  friend. 

The  man  who  had  suffered  these  monstrous 
mutilations  was  alive.  At  intervals  he  moved 
his  limbs;  he  moaned  at  every  breath.  He 
stared  blankly  into  the  face  of  his  friend,  and 
if  touched  screamed.  In  his  giant  agony  he 
had  torn  up  the  ground  on  which  he  lay;  his 
clenched  hands  were  full  of  leaves  and  twigs 
10 


146  THE  COUP  DE  GRACE. 

and  earth.  Articulate  speech  was  beyond  his 
power;  it  was  impossible  to  know  if  he  were 
sensible  to  anything  but  pain.  The  expression 
of  his  face  was  an  appeal;  his  eyes  were  full 
of  prayer.  For  what  ? 

There  was  no  misreading  that  look;  the 
captain  had  too  frequently  seen  it  in  eyes  of 
those  whose  lips  had  still  the  power  to  formu- 
late it  by  an  entreaty  for  death.  Consciously 
or  unconsciously,  this  writhing  fragment  of 
humanity,  this  type  and  example  of  acute 
sensation,  this  handiwork  of  man  and  beast, 
this  humble,  unheroic  Prometheus,  was  implor- 
ing everything,  all,  the  whole  non-ego,  for 
the  boon  of  oblivion.  To  the  earth  and  the 
sky  alike,  to  the  trees,  to  the  man,  to  what- 
ever took  form  in  sense  or  consciousness,  this 
incarnate  suffering  addressed  its  silent  plea. 

For  what,  indeed? — For  that  which  we  ac- 
cord to  even  the  meanest  creature  without 
sense  to  demand  it,  denying  it  only  to  the 
wretched  of  our  own  race:  for  the  blessed 
release,  the  rite  of  uttermost  compassion,  the 
coup  de  grace. 

Captain  Madwell  spoke  the  name  of  his 
friend.  He  repeated  it  over  and  over  with- 
out effect  until  emotion  choked  his  utterance. 
His  tears  plashed  upon  the  livid  face  beneath 


THE  COUP  DE  GRACE.  j/jj 

his  own  and  blinded  himself.  He  saw  noth- 
ing but  a  blurred  and  moving  object,  but  the 
moans  were  more  distinct  than  ever,  inter- 
rupted at  briefer  intervals  by  sharper  shrieks. 
He  turned  away,  struck  his  hand  upon  his 
forehead,  and  strode  from  the  spot.  The 
swine,  catching  sight  of  him,  threw  up  their 
crimson  muzzles,  regarding  him  suspiciously 
a  second,  and  then,  with  a  gruff,  concerted 
grunt,  raced  away  out  of  sight.  A  horse,  its 
fore-leg  splintered  horribly  by  a  cannon  shot, 
lifted  its  head  sidewise  from  the  ground  and 
neighed  piteously.  Madwell  stepped  forward, 
drew  his  revolver  and  shot  the  poor  beast 
between  the  eyes,  narrowly  observing  its 
death  struggle,  which,  contrary  to  his  ex- 
pectation, was  violent  and  long;  but  at  last  it 
lay  still.  The  tense  muscles  of  its  lips,  which 
had  uncovered  the  teeth  in  a  horrible  grin, 
relaxed;  the  sharp,  clean-cut  profile  took  on 
a  look  of  profound  peace  and  rest. 

Along  the  distant  thinly-wooded  crest  to 
westward  the  fringe  of  sunset  fire  had  now 
nearly  burned  itself  out.  The  light  upon  the 
trunks  of  the  trees  had  faded  to  a  tender 
gray;  the  shadows  were  in  their  tops,  like 
great  dark  birds  aperch.  The  night  was  com- 
ing and  there  were  miles  of  haunted  forest 


148  THE  COUP  DE  GRACE. 

between  Captain  Madwell  and  camp.  Yet  he 
stood  there  at  the  side  of  the  dead  animal, 
apparently  lost  to  all  sense  of  his  surround- 
ings. His  eyes  were  bent  upon  the  earth  at 
his  feet;  his  left  hand  hung  loosely  at  his  side, 
his  right  still  held  the  pistol.  Suddenly  he 
lifted  his  face,  turned  it  toward  his  dying 
friend,  and  walked  rapidly  back  to  his  side. 
He  knelt  upon  one  knee,  cocked  the  weapon, 
placed  the  muzzle  against  the  man's  forehead, 
turned  away  his  eyes  and  pulled  the  trigger. 
There  was  no  report.  He  had  used  his  last 
cartridge  for  the  horse.  The  sufferer  moaned 
and  his  lips  moved  convulsively.  The  froth 
that  ran  from  them  had  a  tinge  of  blood. 

Captain  Madwell  rose  to  his  feet  and 
drew  his  sword  from  the  scabbard.  He 
passed  the  fingers  of  his  left  hand  along  the 
edge  from  hilt  to  point.  He  held  it  out 
straight  before  him,  as  if  to  test  his  nerves. 
There  was  no  visible  tremor  of  the  blade; 
the  ray  of  bleak  skylight  that  it  reflected  was 
steady  and  true.  He  stooped,  and  with  his 
left  hand  tore  away  the  dying  man's  shirt, 
rose,  and  placed  the  point  of  the  sword  just 
over  the  heart.  This  time  he  did  not  with- 
draw his,  eyes.  Grasping  the  hilt  with  both 
hands,  he  thrust  downward  with  all  his 


THE  COUP  DE  GRACE. 


149 


strength  and  weight.  The  blade  sank  into 
the  man's  body — through  his  body  into  the 
earth;  Captain  Madvvell  came  near  falling 
forward  upon  his  work.  The  dying  man 
drew  up  his  knees  and  at  the  same  time  threw 
his  right  arm  across  his  breast  and  grasped 
the  steel  so  tightly  that  the  knuckles  of  the 
hand  visibly  whitened.  By  a  violent  but  vain 
effort  to  withdraw  the  blade,  the  wound  was 
enlarged;  a  rill  of  blood  escaped,  running 
sinuously  down  into  the  deranged  clothing. 
At  that  moment  three  men  stepped  silently 
forward  from  behind  the  clump  of  young 
trees  which  had  concealed  their  approach. 
Two  were  hospital  attendants  and  carried  a 
stretcher. 

The  third  was  Major  Creede  Halcrow. 


PARKER    ADDERSON     PHILOSOPHER. 


"  PRISONER,  what  is  your  name  ?  " 

uAs  I  am  to  lose  it  at  daylight  to-mor- 
row morning,  it  is  hardly  worth  concealing. 
Parker  Adderson." 

"  Your  rank?" 

"A  somewhat  humble  one;  commissioned 
officers  are  too  precious  to  be  risked  in  the 
perilous  business  of  a  spy.  I  am  a  sergeant." 

' '  Of  what  regiment  ?  ' ' 

"  You  must  excuse  me;  if  I  answered  that 
it  might,  for  anything  I  know,  give  you  an 
idea  of  whose  forces  are  in  your  froi  Such 
knowledge  as  that  is  what  I  came  into  your 
lines  to  obtain,  not  to  impart." 

"  You  are  not  without  wit." 

"  If  you  have  the  patience  to  wait,  you  will 
find  me  dull  enough  to-morrow." 

"  How  do  you  know  that  you  are  to  die 
to-morrow  morning." 

"Among  spies  captured  by  night  that  is  the 
custom.     It  is  one  of  the  nice  observances  of 
the  profession." 


1^2      PARKER  ADDERSON,  PHILOSOPHER. 

The  general  so  far  laid  aside  the  dignity 
appropriate  to  a  Confederate  officer  of  high 
rank  and  wide  renown  as  to  smile.  But  no 
one  in  his  power  and  out  of  his  favor  would 
have  drawn  any  happy  augury  from  that  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  approval.  It  was 
neither  genial  nor  infectious;  it  did  not  com- 
municate itself  to  the  other  persons  exposed 
to  it — the  caught  spy  who  had  provoked  it 
and  the  armed  guard  who  had  brought  him 
into  the  tent  and  now  stood  a  little  apart, 
watching  his  prisoner  in  the  yellow  candle- 
light. It  was  no  part  of  that  warrior's  duty 
to  smile;  he  had  been  detailed  for  another 
purpose.  The  conversation  was  resumed;  it 
was,  in  fact,  a  trial  for  a  capital  offense. 

"  You  admit,  then,  that  you  are  a  spy — that 
you  came  into  my  camp  disguised  as  you  are, 
in  the  uniform  of  a  Confederate  soldier,  to 
obtain  information  secretly  regarding  the 
numbers  and  disposition  of  my  troops." 

' '  Regarding,  particularly,  their  numbers. 
Their  disposition  I  already  knew.  It  is  mo- 
rose." 

The  general  brightened  again;  the  guard, 
with  a  severer  sense  of  his  responsibility,  ac- 
centuated the  austerity  of  his  expression  and 
stood  a  trifle  more  erect  than  before.  Twirl- 


PARKER  ADDERSON,  PHILOSOPHER.       153 

ing  his  gray  slouch  hat  round  and  round  upon 
his  forefinger,  the  spy  took  a  leisurely  sur- 
vey of  his  surroundings.  They  were  simple 
enough.  The  tent  was  a  common  "wall 
tent,"  about  eight  feet  by  ten  in  dimensions, 
lighted  by  a  single  tallow  candle  stuck  into 
the  haft  of  a  bayonet,  which  was  itself  stuck 
into  a  pine  table,  at  which  the  general  sat, 
now  busily  writing  and  apparently  forgetful  of 
his  unwilling  guest.  An  old  rag  carpet  cov- 
ered the  earthen  floor;  an  older  hair  trunk, 
a  second  chair,  and  a  roll  of  blankets  were 
about  all  else  that  the  tent  contained;  in 
General  Clavering's  command  Confederate 
simplicity  and  penury  of  "  pomp  and  circum- 
stance," had  attained  their  highest  develop- 
ment. On  a  large  nail  driven  into  the  tent 
pole  at  the  entrance  was  suspended  a  sword 
belt  supporting  a  long  saber,  a  pistol  in  its 
holster,  and,  absurdly  enough,  a  bowie  knife. 
Of  that  most  unmilitary  weapon  it  was  the  gen- 
eral's habit  to  explain  that  it  was  a  cherished 
souvenir  of  the  peaceful  days  when  he  was 
a  civilian. 

It  was  a  stormy  night.  The  rain  cascaded 
upon  the  canvas  in  torrents,  with  the  dull, 
drum-like  sound  familiar  to  dwellers  in  tents. 
As  the  whooping  blasts  charged  upon  it  the 


154      PARKER  ADDERSON,  PHILOSOPHER. 

frail  structure  shook  and  swayed  and  strained 
at  its  confining  stakes  and  ropes. 

The  general  finished  writing,  folded  the 
half  sheet  of  paper,  and  spoke  to  the  soldier 
guarding  Adderson:  "Here,  Tassman,  take 
that  to  the  adjutant  general;  then  return." 

"And  the  prisoner,  general?"  said  the 
soldier,  saluting,  with  an  inquiring  glance  in 
the  direction  of  that  unfortunate. 

"  Do  as  I  said,"  replied  the  officer,  curtly. 

The  soldier  took  the  note  and  ducked  him- 
self out  of  the  tent.  General  Clavering 
turned  his  handsome,  clean-cut  face  toward 
the  Federal  spy,  looked  him  in  the  eyes,  not 
unkindly,  and  said:  "It  is  a  bad  night,  my 
man." 

"  For  me,  yes." 

"  Do  you  guess  what  I  have  written  ?  " 

' '  Something  worth  reading,  I  dare  say. 
And — perhaps  it  is  my  vanity — I  venture  to 
suppose  that  I  am  mentioned  in  it. ' ' 

"Yes;  it  a  memorandum  for  an  order  to 
be  read  to  the  troops  at  reveille  concerning 
your  execution.  Also  some  notes  for  the 
guidance  of  the  provost  marshal  in  arrang- 
ing the  details  of  that  event." 

"  I  hope,  general,  the  spectacle  will  be  in- 
telligently arranged,  for  I  shall  attend  it  my- 
self." 


PARKER  ADDERSON,  PHILOSOPHER.       jt^ 

1 '  Have  you  any  arrangements  of  your  own 
that  you  wish  to  make  ?  Do  you  wish  to  see 
a  chaplain,  for  example  ?  " 

' '  I  could  hardly  secure  a  longer  rest  for 
myself  by  depriving  him  of  some  of  his." 

' '  Good  God,  man !  do  you  mean  to  go  to 
your  death  with  nothing  but  jokes  upon  your 
lips  ?  Do  you  not  know  that  this  is  a  serious 
matter  ?  ' ' 

''How  can  I  know  that?  I  have  never 
been  dead  in  all  my  life.  I  have  heard  that 
death  is  a  serious  matter,  but  never  from  any 
of  those  who  have  experienced  it. ' ' 

The  general  was  silent  for  a  moment;  the 
man  interested,  perhaps  amused  him — a  type 
not  previously  encountered. 

"Death,"  he  said,  "is  at  least  a  loss — a 
loss  of  such  happiness  as  we  have,  and  of 
opportunities  for  more." 

' '  A  loss  of  which  we  will  never  be  con- 
scious can  be  borne  with  composure  and 
therefore  expected  withqut  apprehension. 
You  must  have  observed,  general,  that  of 
all  the  dead  men  with  whom  it  is  your  sol- 
dierly pleasure  to  strew  your  path,  none  show 
signs  of  regret." 

"  If  the  being  dead  is  not  a  regrettable 
condition,  yet  the  becoming  so — the  act  of 


1^6        PARKER  ADDERSON,  PHILOSOPHER. 

dying — appears  to  be  distinctly  disagreeable 
in  one  who  has  not  lost  the  power  to  feel. ' ' 

"Pain  is  disagreeable,  no  doubt.  I  never 
suffer  it  without  more  or  less  discomfort. 
But  he  who  lives  longest  is  most  exposed  to 
it.  What  you  call  dying  is  simply  the  last 
pain — there  is  really  no  such  thing  as  dying. 
Suppose,  for  illustration,  that  I  attempt  to 
escape.  You  lift  the  revolver  that  you  are 
courteously  concealing  in  your  lap,  and — 

The  general  blushed  like  a  girl,  then 
laughed  softly,  disclosing  his  brilliant  teeth, 
made  a  slight  inclination  of  his  handsome 
head,  and  said  nothing.  The  spy  continued: 
' '  You  fire,  and  I  have  in  my  stomach  what  I 
did  not  swallow.  I  fall,  but  am  not  dead. 
After  a  half  hour  of  agony  I  am  dead.  But 
at  any  given  instant  of  that  half  hour  I  was 
either  alive  or  dead.  There  is  no  transition 
period. 

"When  I  am  hanged  to-morrow  morning 
it  will  be  quite  the  same;  while  conscious  I 
shall  be  living;  when  dead,  unconscious.  Na- 
ture appears  to  have  ordered  the  matter  quite 
in  my  interest — the  way  that  I  should  have 
ordered  it  myself.  It  is  so  simple,"  he  added 
with  a  smile,  "that  it  seems  hardly  worth 
while  to  be  hanged  at  all." 


PARKER  ADDERSOX,  PHILOSOPHER.         157 

At  the  finish  of  his  remarks  there  was  a 
long  silence.  The  general  sat  impassive, 
looking  into  the  man's  face,  but  apparently 
not  attentive  to  what  had  been  said.  It  was 
as  if  his  eyes  had  mounted  guard  over  the 
prisoner,  while  his  mind  concerned  itself  with 
other  matters.  Presently  he  drew  a  long, 
deep  breath,  shuddered,  as  one  awakened 
from  a  dreadful  dream,  and  exclaimed  almost 
inaudibly:  "Death  is  horrible!" — this  man 
of  death. 

"  It  was  horrible  to  our  savage  ancestors," 
said  the  spy,  gravely,  "because  they  had  not 
enough  intelligence  to  dissociate  the  idea  of 
consciousness  from  the  idea  of  the  physical 
forms  in  which  it  is  manifested — as  an  even 
lower  order  of  intelligence,  that  of  the 
monkey,  for  example,  may  be  unable  to  im- 
agine a  house  without  inhabitants,  and  seeing 
a  ruined  hut  fancies  a  suffering  occupant.  To 
us  it  is  horrible  because  we  have  inherited  the 
tendency  to  think  it  so,  accounting  for  the  no- 
tion by  wild  and  fanciful  theories  of  another 
world — as  names  of  places  give  rise  to  leg- 
ends explaining  them,  and  reasonless  conduct 
to  philosophies  in  justification.  You  can  hang 
me,  general,  but  there  your  power  of  evil 
ends;  you  cannot  condemn  me  to  heaven." 


158       PARKER  ADDERSON,  PHILOSOPHER. 

The  general  appeared  not  to  have  heard; 
the  spy's  talk  had  merely  turned  his  thoughts 
into  an  unfamiliar  channel,  but  there  they 
pursued  their  will  independently  to  conclu- 
sions of  their  own.  The  storm  had  ceased, 
and  something  of  the  solemn  spirit  of  the 
night  had  imparted  itself  to  his  reflections, 
giving  them  the  somber  tinge  of  a  supernat- 
ural dread.  Perhaps  there  was  an  element  of 
prescience  in  it.  "I  should  not  like  to  die," 
he  said — "  not  to-night." 

He  was  interrupted — if,  indeed,  he  had  in- 
tended to  speak  further — by  the  entrance  of 
an  officer  of  his  staff,  Captain  Hasterlick, 
the  provost-marshal.  This  recalled  him  to 
himself;  the  absent  look  passed  away  from 
his  face. 

"Captain,"  he  said,  acknowledging  the 
officer's  salute,  "this  man  is  a  Yankee  spy 
captured  inside  our  lines  with  incriminating 
papers  on  him.  He  has  confessed.  How  is 
the  weather?  " 

"The  storm  is  over,  sir,  and  the  moon 
shining." 

"Good;  take  a  tile  of  men,  conduct  him 
at  once  to  the  parade  ground,  and  shoot 
him." 

A   sharp    cry  broke   from  the  spy's   lips. 


PARKER  ADDERSON,  PHILOSOPHER.        159 

He  threw  himself  forward,  thrust  out  his 
neck,  expanded  his  eyes,  clenched  his  hands. 

' '  Good  God  ! ' '  he  cried,  hoarsely,  almost 
inarticulately;  "  you  do  not  mean  that!  You 
forget — I  am  not  to  die  until  morning." 

"  I  have  said  nothing  of  morning,"  re- 
plied the  general,  coldly;  "that  was  anas- 
sumption  of  your  own.  You  die  now." 

4<  But.  general,  I  beg — I  implore  you  to 
remember;  I  am  to  hang!  It  will  take  some 
time  to  erect  the  gallows — two  hours — an 
hour.  Spies  are  hanged  ;  I  have  rights 
under  military  law.  For  heaven's  sake,  gen- 
eral, consider  how  short — 

"  Captain,  observe  my  directions." 

The  officer  drew  his  sword,  and,  fixing  his 
eyes  upon  the  prisoner,  pointed  silently  to  the 
opening  of  the  tent.  The  prisoner,  deathly 
pale,  hesitated;  the  officer  grasped  him  by 
the  collar  and  pushed  him  gently  forward. 
As  he  approached  the  tent  pole,  the  frantic 
man  sprang  to  it,  and,  with  cat-like  agility, 
seized  the  handle  of  the  bowie  knife,  plucked 
the  weapon  from  the  scabbard,  and,  thrust- 
ing the  captain  aside,  leaped  upon  the  general 
with  the  fury  of  a  madman,  hurling  him  to 
the  ground  and  falling  headlong  upon  him 
as  he  lay.  The  table  was  overturned,  the 


l6o       PARKER  AD  PERSON,    PHILOSOPHER. 

candle  extinguished,  and  they  fought  blindly 
in  the  darkness.  The  provost-marshal  sprang 
to  the  assistance  of  his  superior  officer,  and 
was  himself  prostrated  upon  the  struggling 
forms.  Curses  and  inarticulate  cries  of  rage 
and  pain  came  from  the  welter  of  limbs  and 
bodies;  the  tent  came  down  upon  them,  and 
beneath  its  hampering  and  enveloping  folds 
the  struggle  went  on.  Private  Tassman,  re- 
turning from  his  errand  and  dimly  conjectur- 
ing the  situation,  threw  down  his  rifle,  and, 
laying  hold  of  the  flouncing  canvas  at  random, 
vainly  tried  to  drag  it  off  the  men  under  it; 
and  the  sentinel  who  paced  up  and  down  in 
front,  not  daring  to  leave  his  beat  though  the 
skies  should  fall,  discharged  his  piece.  The 
report  alarmed  the  camp;  drums  beat  the 
long  roll  and  bugles  sounded  the  assembly, 
bringing  swarms  of  half-clad  men  into  the 
moonlight,  dressing  as  they  ran,  and  falling 
into  line  at  the  sharp  commands  of  their 
officers.  This  was  well;  being  in  line  the 
men  were  under  control;  they  stood  at  arms 
while  the  general's  staff  and  the  men  of  his 
escort  brought  order  out  of  confusion  by  lift- 
ing off  the  fallen  tent  and  pulling  apart  the 
breathless  and  bleeding  actors  in  that  strange 
contention. 


PARKER  ADDERSON,  PHILOSOPHER.       l6l 

Breathless,  indeed,  was  one;  the  captain 
was  dead,  the  handle  of  the  bowie  knife  pro- 
truding from  his  throat  and  pressed  back  be- 
neath his  chin  until  the  end  had  caught  in 
the  angle  of  the  jaw,  and  the  hand  that  de- 
livered the  blow  had  been  unable  to  remove 
the  weapon.  In  the  dead  man's  hand  was 
his  sword,  clenched  with  a  grip  that  defied 
the  strength  of  the  living.  Its  blade  was 
streaked  with  red  to  the  hilt. 

Lifted  to  his  feet,  the  general  sank  back  to 
the  earth  with  a  moan  and  fainted.  Besides 
his  bruises  he  had  two  sword-thrusts — one 
through  the  thigh,  the  other  through  the 
shoulder. 

The  spy  had  suffered  the  least  damage. 
Apart  from  a  broken  right  arm,  his  wounds 
were  such  only  as  might  have  been  incurred 
in  an  ordinary  combat  with  nature's  weapons. 
But  he  was  dazed,  and  seemed  hardly  to 
know  what  had  occurred.  He  shrank  away 
from  those  attending  him,  cowered  upon  the 
ground,  and  uttered  unintelligible  remon- 
strances. His  face,  swollen  by  blows  and 
stained  with  gouts  of  blood,  nevertheless 
showed  white  beneath  his  disheveled  hair — 
as  white  as  that  of  a  corpse. 

' 4  The  man  is  not  insane, ' '  said  the  surgeon 
ii 


162 

in  reply  to  a  question;  "he  is  suffering  from 
fright.  Who  and  what  is  he  ?  " 

Private  Tassman  began  to  explain.  It  was 
the  opportunity  of  his  life;  he  omitted  noth- 
ing that  could  in  any  way  accentuate  the  im- 
portance of  his  own  relation  to  the  night's 
events.  When  he  had  finished  his  story  and 
was  ready  to  begin  it  again,  nobody  gave  him 
any  attention. 

The  general  had  now  recovered  conscious- 
ness. He  raised  himself  upon  his  elbow, 
looked  about  him,  and,  seeing  the  spy  crouch- 
ing by  a  camp-fire,  guarded,  said,  simply: — 

"Take  that  man  to  the  parade  ground  and 
shoot  him." 

"The  general's  mind  wanders,"  said  an 
ofBcer  standing  near. 

"  His  mind  does  not  wander,"  the  adjutant- 
general  said.  "  I  have  a  memorandum  from 
him  about  this  business;  he  had  given  that 
same  order  to  Hasterlick  "  — with  a  motion 
of  the  hand  toward  the  dead  provost-mar- 
shal—  "and,  by  God!  it  shall  be  executed." 

Ten  minutes  later  Sergeant  Parker  Adder- 
son,  of  the  Federal  army,  philosopher  and 
wit,  kneeling  in  the  moonlight  and  begging 
incoherently  for  his  life,  was  shot  to  death  by 
twenty  men.  As  the  volley  rang  out  upon 


PARKER  ADDERSON,  PHILOSOPHER.       163 

the  keen  air  of  the  winter  midnight,  General 
Clavering,  lying  white  and  still  in  the  red  glow 
of  the  camp-fire,  opened  his  big  blue  eyes, 
looked  pleasantly  upon  those  about  him,  and 
said,  "How  silent  it  all  is!  " 

The  surgeon  looked  at  the  adjutant-gen- 
eral, gravely  and  significantly.  The  patient's 
eyes  slowly  closed,  and  thus  he  lay  for  a  few 
moments;  then,  his  face  suffused  with  a  smile 
of  ineffable  sweetness,  he  said,  faintly,  "  I 
suppose  this  must  be  death,"  and  so  passed 
away. 


A  WATCHER  BY  THE   DEAD. 


TN  an  upper  room  of  an  unoccupied  dwell- 
ing in  that  part  of  San  Francisco  known  as 
North  Beach  lay  the  body  of  a  man  under  a 
sheet.  The  hour  was  near  nine  in  the  even- 
ing; the  room  was  dimly  lighted  by  a  single 
candle.  Although  the  weather  was  warm, 
the  two  windows,  contrary  to  the  custom 
which  gives  the  dead  plenty  of  air,  were 
closed  and  the  blinds  drawn  down.  The 
furniture  of  the  room  consisted  of  but  three 
pieces, — an  arm-chair,  a  small  reading  stand, 
supporting  the  candle,  and  a  long  kitchen  ta- 
ble, supporting  the  body  of  the  man.  All 
these,  as  also  the  corpse,  would  seem  to 
have  been  recently  brought  in,  for  an  ob- 
server, had  there  been  one,  would  have  seen 
that  all  were  free  from  dust,  whereas  every- 
thing else  in  the  room  was  pretty  thickly 
coated  with  it,  and  there  were  cobwebs  in  the 
angles  of  the  walls. 

Under  the  sheet  the  outlines  of  the  body 

.   (165) 


1 66  A    WATCHER  BY  THE  DEAD. 

could  be  traced,  even  the  features,  these  hav- 
ing that  unnaturally  sharp  definition  which 
seems  to  belong  to  faces  of  the  dead,  but  is 
really  characteristic  of  those  only  that  have 
been  wasted  by  disease.  From  the  silence  of 
the  room  one  would  rightly  have  inferred 
that  it  was  not  in  the  front  of  the  house, 
facing  a  street.  It  really  faced  nothing  but  a 
high  breast  of  rock,  the  rear  of  the  building 
being  set  into  a  hill. 

As  a  neighboring  church  clock  was  strik- 
ing nine  with  an  indolence  which  seemed  to 
imply  such  an  indifference  to  the  flight  of 
time  that  one  could  hardly  help  wondering 
why  it  took  the  trouble  to  strike  at  all,  the 
single  door  of  the  room  was  opened  and  a 
man  entered,  advancing  toward  the  body. 
As  he  did  so  the  door  closed,  apparently  of 
its  own  volition;  there  was  a  grating,  as  of  a 
key  turned  with  difficulty,  and  the  snap  of  the 
lock  bolt  as  it  shot  into  its  socket.  A  sound 
of  retiring  footsteps  in  the  passage  outside 
ensued,  and  the  man  was,  to  all  appearance,  a 
prisoner.  Advancing  to  the  table,  he  stood 
a  moment  looking  down  at  the  body;  then, 
with  a  slight  shrug  of  the  shoulders,  walked 
over  to  one  of  the  windows  and  hoisted  the 
blind.  The  darkness  outside  was  absolute, 


A  WATCHER  BY  THE  DEAD.  167 

the  panes  were  covered  with  dust,  but,  by 
wiping  this  away,  he  could  see  that  the  win- 
dow was  fortified  with  strong  iron  bars  cross- 
ing it  within  a  few  inches  of  the  glass,  and 
imbedded  in  the  masonry  on  each  side.  He 
examined  the  other  window.  It  was  the 
same.  He  manifested  no  great  curiosity  in 
the  matter,  did  not  even  so  much  as  raise 
the  sash.  If  he  was  a  prisoner  he  was  ap- 
parently a  tractable  one.  Having  completed 
his  examination  of  the  room,  he  seated  him- 
self in  the  arm-chair,  took  a  book  from  his 
pocket,  drew  the  stand  with  its  candle  along- 
side and  began  to  read. 

The  man  was  young — not  more  than  thirty 
— dark  in  complexion,  smooth-shaven,  with 
brown  hair.  His  face  was  thin  and  high- 
nosed,  with  a  broad  forehead  and  a  ' '  firm- 
ness ' '  of  the  chin  and  jaw  which  is  said  by 
those  having"  it  to  denote  resolution.  The 
eyes  were  gray  and  steadfast,  not  moving  ex- 
cept with  definitive  purpose.  They  were  now 
for  the  greater  part  of  the  time  fixed  upon 
his  book,  but  he  occasionally  withdrew  them 
and  turned  them  to  the  body  on  the  table, 
not,  apparently,  from  any  dismal  fascination 
which,  under  such  circumstances,  it  might  be 
supposed  to  exercise  upon  even  a  courageous 


1 68  A    WATCHER  BV  THE  DEAD. 

person,  nor  with  a  conscious  rebellion  against 
the  opposite  influence  which  might  dominate 
a  timid  one.  He  looked  at  it  as  if  in  his 
reading  he  had  come  upon  something  recall- 
ing him  to  a  sense  of  his  surroundings. 
Clearly  this  watcher  by  the  dead  was  dis- 
charging his  trust  with  intelligence  and  com- 
posure, as  became  him. 

After  reading  for  perhaps  a  half-hour  he 
seemed  to  come  to  the  end  of  a  chapter  and 
quietly  laid  away  the  book.  He  then  rose, 
and,  taking  the  reading  stand  from  the  floor, 
carried  it  into  a  corner  of  the  room  near  one 
of  the  windows,  lifted  the  candle  from  it,  and 
returned  to  the  empty  fireplace  before  which 
he  had  been  sitting. 

A  moment  later  he  walked  over  to  the  body 
on  the  table,  lifted  the  sheet,  and  turned  it 
back  from  the  head,  exposing  a  mass  of  dark 
hair  and  a  thin  face-cloth,  beneath  which  the 
features  showed  with  even  sharper  definition 
than  before.  Shading  his  eyes  by  interposing 
his  free  hand  between  them  and  the  candle, 
he  stood  looking  at  his  motionless  compan- 
ion with  a  serious  and  tranquil  regard.  Sat- 
isfied with  his  inspection,  he  pulled  the  sheet 
over  the  face  again,  and,  returning  to  his  chair, 
took  some  matches  off  the  candlestick,  put 


A    U'.lTCIfER  BY  THE  DEAD.  169 

them  in  the  side  pocket  of  his  sack  coat  and 
sat  down.  He  then  lifted  the  candle  from  its 
socket  and  looked  at  it  critically,  as  if  calcu- 
lating how  long  it  would  last.  It  was  barely 
two  inches  long;  in  another  hour  he  would  be 
in  darkness!  He  replaced  it  in  the  candle- 
stick and  blew  it  out. 

ii. 

In  a  physician's  office  in  Kearny  street 
three  men  sat  about  a  table,  drinking  punch 
and  smoking.  It  was  late  in  the  evening, 
almost  midnight,  indeed,  and  there  had  been 
no  lack  of  punch.  The  eldest  of  the  three, 
Dr.  Helberson,  was  the  host — it  was  in  his 
rooms  they  sat.  He  was  about  thirty  years 
of  age;  the  others  were  even  younger;  all 
were  physicians. 

' '  The  superstitious  awe  with  which  the  liv- 
ing regard  the  dead,"  said  Dr.  Helberson, 
"is  hereditary  and  incurable.  One  need  no 
more  be  ashamed  of  it  than  of  the  fact  that 
he  inherits,  for  example,  an  incapacity  for 
mathematics,  or  a  tendency  to  lie." 

The  others  laughed.  "Oughtn't  a  man 
to  be  ashamed  to  be  a  liar  ? ' '  asked  the 
youngest  of  the  three,  who  was,  in  fact,  a 
medical  student  not  yet  graduated. 


I7O  A    WATCHER  BY  THE  DEAD. 

"My  dear  Harper,  I  said  nothing  about 
that.  The  tendency  to  lie  is  one  thing;  lying 
is  another." 

"  But  do  you  think,"  said  the  third  man, 
"that  this  superstitious  feeling,  this  fear  of 
the  dead,  reasonless  as  we  know  it  to  be,  is 
universal?  I  am  myself  not  conscious  of  it." 

"Oh,  but  it  is  'in  your  system'  for  all 
that,"  replied  Helberson;  "it  needs  only 
the  right  conditions — what  Shakespeare  calls 
the  '  confederate  season ' — to  manifest  itself 
in  some  very  disagreeable  way  that  will  open 
your  eyes.  Physicians  and  soldiers  are,  of 
course,  more  nearly  free  from  it  than  others.  > 

"Physicians  and  soldiers! — why  don't  you 
add  hangmen  and  headsmen  ?  Let  us  have 
in  all  the  assassin  classes. ' ' 

"No,  my  dear  Mancher;  the  juries  will 
not  let  the  public  executioners  acquire  suffi- 
cient familiarity  with  death  to  be  altogether 
unmoved  by  it." 

Young  Harper,  who  had  been  helping  him- 
self to  a  fresh  cigar  at  the  sideboard,  resumed 
his  seat.  "What  would  you  consider  con- 
ditions under  which  any  man  of  woman  born 
would  become  insupportably  conscious  of  his 
share  of  our  common  weakness  in  this  re- 
gard ?  "  he  asked,  rather  verbosely. 


A    WATCHER  BY  THE  DEAD.  I'Jl 

"Well,  I  should  say  that  if  a  man  were 
locked  up  all  night  with  a  corpse — alone — 
in  a  dark  room — of  a  vacant  house — with  no 
bed  covers  to  pull  over  his  head — and  lived 
through  it  without  going  altogether  mad — 
he  might  justly  boast  himself  not  of  woman 
born,  nor  yet,  like  Macduff,  a  product  of 
Caesarean  section." 

"  I  thought  you  never  would  finish  piling 
up  conditions,"  said  Harper,  "but  I  know  a 
man  who  is  neither  a  physician  nor  a  soldier 
who  will  accept  them  all,  for  any  stake  you 
like  to  name. " 

11  Who  is  he?" 

"  His  name  is  Jarette — a  stranger  in  Cal- 
ifornia; comes  from  my  town  in  New  York. 
I  haven't  any  money  to  back  him,  but  he  will 
back  himself  with  dead  loads  of  it." 

"  How  do  you  know  that?  " 

"  He  would  rather  bet  than  eat.  As  for 
fear — I  dare  say  he  thinks  it  some  cutaneous 
disorder,  or,  possibly,  a  particular  kind  of  re- 
ligious heresy." 

' '  What  does  he  look  like  ? ' '  Helberson 
was  evidently  becoming  interested. 

"  Like  Mancher,  here — might  be  his  twin 
brother." 

"  I  accept  the  challenge,"  said  Helberson, 
promptly. 


172  A    WATCHER  BY  THE  DEAD. 

"  Awfully  obliged  to  you  for  the  compli- 
ment, I'm  sure,"  drawled  Mancher,  who  was 
growing  sleepy.  "  Can't  I  get  into  this  ? " 

"Not  against  me,"  Helberson  said.  "I 
don't  wantjjw^'  money." 

"All  right,"  said  Mancher;  "I'll  be  the 
corpse." 

The  others  laughed. 

The  outcome  of  this  crazy  conversation  we 
have  seen. 

in. 

In  extinguishing  his  meager  allowance  of 
candle  Mr.  Jarette's  object  was  to  preserve 
it  against  some  unforeseen  need.  He  may 
have  thought,,  too,  or  half  thought,  that  the 
darkness  would  be  no  worse  at  one  time  than 
another,  and  if  the  situation  became  insup- 
portable, it  would  be  better  to  have  a  means 
of  relief,  or  even  release.  At  any  rate,  it  was 
wise  to  have  a  little  reserve  oi  light,  even  if 
only  to  enable  him  to  look  at  his  watch. 

No  sooner  had  he  blown  out  the  candle 
and  set  it  on  the  floor  at  his  side  than  he  set- 
tled himself  comfortably  in  the  arm-chair, 
leaned  back  and  closed  his  eyes,  hoping  and 
expecting  to  sleep.  In  this  he  was  disap- 
pointed; he  had  never  in  his  life  felt  less 
sleepy,  and  in  a  few  minutes  he  gave  up  the 


A   WATCHER  BY  THE  DEAD.  173 

attempt.  But  what  could  he  do  ?  He  could 
not  go  groping  about  in  the  absolute  dark- 
ness at  the  risk  of  bruising  himself — at  the 
risk,  too,  of  blundering  against  the  table  and 
rudely  disturbing  the  dead.  We  all  recog- 
nize their  right  to  lie  at  rest,  with  immunity 
from  all  that  is  harsh  and  violent.  Jarette 
almost  succeeded  in  making  himself  believe 
that  considerations  of  that  kind  restrained 
him  from  risking  the  collision  and  fixed  him 
to  the  chair. 

While  thinking  of  this  matter  he  fancied 
that  he  heard  a  faint  sound  in  the  direction 
of  the  table — what  kind  of  sound  he  could 
hardly  have  explained.  He  did  not  turn  his 
head.  Why  should  he — in  the  darkness? 
But  he  listened — why  should  he  not?  And 
listening  he  grew  giddy  and  grasped  the  arms 
of  the  chair  for  support.  There  was  a  strange 
ringing  in  his  ears;  his  head  seemed  bursting; 
his  chest  was  oppressed  by  the  constriction  of 
his  clothing.  He.  wondered  why  it  was  so, 
and  whether  these  were  symptoms  of  fear. 
Suddenly,  with  a  long  and  strong  expiration, 
his  chest  appeared  to  collapse,  and  with  the 
great  gasp  with  which  he  refilled  his  exhausted 
lungs  the  vertigo  left  him,  and  he  knew  that 
so  intently  had  he  listened  that  he  had  held 


174  A  WATCH KR  /.-)•  -/•///•;  /)/•:.!/). 

his  breath  almost  to  suffocation.  The  reve- 
lation was  vexatious;  he  arose,  pushed  away 
the  chair  with  his  foot,  and  strode  to  the  cen- 
ter of  the  room.  But  one  does  not  stride  far 
in  darkness;  he  began  to  grope,  and,  finding 
the  wall,  followed  it  to  an  angle,  turned,  fol- 
lowed it  past  the  two  windows,  and  there  in 
another  corner  came  into  violent  contact  with 
the  reading  stand,  overturning  it.  It  made  a 
clatter  which  startled  him.  He  was  annoyed. 
"  How  the  devil  could  I  have  forgotton  where 
it  was!"  he  muttered,  and  groped  his  way 
along  the  third  wall  to  the  fireplace.  "I 
must  put  things  to  rights,"  said  Mr.  Jarette, 
feeling  the  floor  for  the  candle. 

Having  recovered  that,  he  lighted  it  and 
instantly  turned  his  eyes  to  the  table,  where, 
naturally,  nothing  had  undergone  any  change. 
The  reading  stand  lay  unobserved  upon  the 
floor;  he  had  forgotten  to  "  put  it  to  rights." 
He  looked  all  about  the  room,  dispersing  the 
deeper  shadows  by  movements  of  the  candle 
in  his  hand,  and,  finally,  crossing  over  to  the 
door,  tried  it  by  turning  and  pulling  the  knob 
with  all  his  strength.  It  did  not  yield  and 
this  seemed  to  afford  him  a  certain  satisfaction; 
indeed,  he  secured  it  more  firmly  by  a  bolt 
which  he  had  not  before  observed.  Return- 


A    IV A  TC HER  BY  THE  DEAD.  175 

ing  to  his  chair,  he  looked  at  his  watch;  it 
was  half-past  nine.  With  a  start  of  surprise 
he  held  the  watch  at  his  ear.  It  had  not 
stopped.  The  candle  was  now  visibly  shorter. 
He  again  extinguished  it,  placing  it  on  the 
floor  at  his  side  as  before. 

Mr.  Jarette  was  not  at  his  ease;  he  was  dis- 
tinctly dissatisfied  with  his  surroundings,  and 
with  himself  for  being  so.  "  What  have  I  to 
fear?  "  he  thought.  "This  is  ridiculous  and 
disgraceful;  I  will  not  be  so  great  a  foot." 
But  courage  does  not  come  of  saying,  "  I- 
will  be  courageous,"  nor  of  recognizing  its 
appropriateness  to  the  occasion.  The  more 
Jarette  condemned  himself,  the  more  reason 
he  gave  himself  for  condemnation;  the  greater 
the  number  of  variations  which  he  played 
upon  the  simple  theme  of  the  harmlessness  of 
the  dead,  the  more  horrible  grew  the  discord 
of  his  emotions.  "What!"  he  cried  aloud  in 
the  anguish  of  his  spirit,  "what!  shall  I, 
who  have  not  a  shade  of  superstition  in  my 
nature — I,  who  have  no  belief  in  immortality 
—I,  who  know  (and  never  more  clearly  than 
now)  that  the  after-life  is  the  dream  of  a  de- 
sire— shall  I  lose  at  once  my  bet,  my  honor, 
and  my  self-respect,  perhaps  my  reason,  be- 
cause certain  savage  ancestors,  dwelling  in 


iy6  A    WATCHER  BY  THE  DEAD. 

caves  and  burrows,  conceived  the  monstrous 
notion  that  the  dead  walk  by  night;  that — ' 
distinctly,    unmistakably,   Mr.   Jarette   heard 
behind  him  a  light,  soft  sound  of  footfalls,  de- 
liberate, regular,  and  successively  nearer! 


Just  before  daybreak  the  next  morning 
Dr.  Helberson  and  his  young  friend  Harper 
were  driving  slowly  through  the  streets  of 
North  Beach  in  the  doctor's  coupe. 

"  Have  you  still  the  confidence  of  youth  in 
the  courage  or  stolidity  of  your  friend?" 
said  the  elder  man.  "  Do  you  believe  that  I 
have  lost  this  wager  ?  " 

"I  know  you  have,"  replied  the  other, 
with  enfeebling  emphasis. 

"Well,  upon  my  soul,  I  hope  so." 

It  was  spoken  earnestly,  almost  solemnly. 
There  was  a  silence  for  a  few  moments. 

"Harper,"  the  doctor  resumed,  looking 
very  serious  in  the  shifting  half-lights  that 
entered  the  carriage  as  they  passed  the  street 
lamps,  "I  don't  feel  altogether  comfortable 
about  this  business.  If  your  friend  had  not 
irritated  me  by  the  contemptuous  manner  in 
which  he  treated  my  doubt  of  his  endurance 
— a  purely  physical  quality — and  by  the  cool 


A    WATCHER  BY  THE  DEAD.  I'JJ 

incivility  of  his  suggestion  that  the  corpse  be 
that  of  a  physician,  I  should  not  have  gone 
on  with  it.  If  anything  should  happen,  we 
are  ruined,  as  I  fear  we  deserve  to  be." 

"  What  can  happen  ?  Even  if  the  matter 
should  be  taking  a  serious  turn;  of  which  I 
am  not  at  all  afraid,  Mancher  has  only  to 
resurrect  himself  and  explain  matters.  With 
a  genuine  '  subject'  from  the  dissecting  room 
or  one  of  your  late  patients,  it  might  be  dif- 
ferent. ' ' 

Dr.  Mancher,  then,  had  been  as  good  as 
his  promise;  he  was  the  "  corpse." 

Dr.  Helberson  was  silent  for  a  long  time, 
as  the  carriage,  at  a  snail's  pace,  crept  along 
the  same  street  it  had  traveled  two  or  three 
times  already.  Presently  he  spoke:  "Well, 
let  us  hope  that  Mancher,  if  he  has  had  to 
rise  from  the  dead,  has  been  discreet  about  it. 
A  mistake  in  that  might  make  matters  worse 
instead  of  better. ' ' 

"Yes,"  said  Harper,  "Jarette  would  kill 
him.  But,  doctor" — looking  at  his  watch 
as  the  carriage  passed  a  gas  lamp — "it  is 
nearly  four  o'clock  at  last." 

A  moment  later  the  two  had  quitted  the 
vehicle,  and  were  walking  briskly  toward  the 
long  unoccupied  house  belonging  to  the  doc- 
12 


Lj8  A    WATCHER  AT  THE  DEAD. 

tor,  in  which  they  had  immured  Mr.  Jarette, 
in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  mad 
wager.  As  they  neared  it,  they  met  a  man 
running.  "Can  you  tell  me,"  he  cried,  sud- 
denly checking  his  speed,  ' '  where  I  can  find 
a  physician?  " 

''What's  the  matter?"  Helberson  asked, 
non-committal. 

"  Go  and  see  for  yourself,"  said  the  man, 
resuming  his  running. 

They  hastened  on.  Arrived  at  the  house, 
they  saw  several  persons  entering  in  haste 
and  excitement.  In  some  of  the  dwellings 
near  by  and  across  the  way,  the  chamber 
windows  were  thrown  up,  showing  a  protru- 
sion of  heads.  All  heads  were  asking  ques- 
tions, none  heeding  the  questions  of  the 
others.  A  few  of  the  windows  with  closed 
blinds  were  illuminated;  the  inmates  of  those 
rooms  were  dressing  to  come  down.  Ex- 
actly opposite  the  door  of  the  house  which  they 
sought,  a  street  lamp  threw  a  yellow,  insuffi- 
cient light  upon  the  scene,  seeming  to  say 
that  it  could  disclose  a  good  deal  more  if  it 
wished.  Harper,  who  was  now  deathly  pale, 
paused  at  the  door  and  laid  a  hand  upon  his 
companion's  arm.  "It  is  all  up  with  us, 
doctor,"  he  said  in  extreme  agitation,  which 


A    M'ATCIIKR  BV  THE  DEAD,  179 

contrasted  strangely  with  his  free  and  easy 
words;  "the  game  has  gone  against  us  all. 
Let's  not  go  in  there;  I'm  for  lying  low." 

"  I'm  a  physician,"  said  Dr.  Helberson, 
calmly;  "there  may  be  need  of  one." 

They  mounted  the  doorsteps  and  were 
about  to  enter.  The  door  was  open;  the 
street  lamp  opposite  lighted  the  passage  into 
which  it  opened.  It  was  full  of  people. 
Some  had  ascended  the  stairs  at  the  farther 
end,  and,  denied  admittance  above,  waited 
for  better  fortune.  All  were  talking,  none 
listening.  Suddenly,  on  the  upper  landing 
there  was  a  great  commotion;  a  man  had 
sprung  out  of  a  door  and  was  breaking  away 
from  those  endeavoring  to  detain  him.  Down 
through  the  mass  of  affrighted  idlers  he  came, 
pushing  them  aside,  flattening  them  against 
the  wall  on  one  side,  or  compelling  them  to 
cling  by  the  rail  on  the  other,  clutching  them 
by  the  throat,  striking  them  savagely,  thrust- 
ing them  back  down  the  stairs,  and  walking 
over  the  fallen.  His  clothing  was  in  disorder, 
he  was  without  a  hat.  His  eyes,  wild  and 
restless,  had  in  them  something  more  terrify- 
ing than  his  apparently  superhuman  strength-. 
His  face,  smooth-shaven,  was  bloodless,  his 
hair  snow  white. 


ISO  A    WATCHER  AT  THE  />/•;, ID. 

As  the  crowd  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  hav- 
ing more  freedom,  fell  away  to  let  him  pass, 
Harper  sprang  forward.  "Jarette!  Jarette!" 
he  cried. 

Dr.  Helberson  seized  Harper  by  the  collar 
and  dragged  him  back.  The  man  looked 
into  their  faces  without  seeming  to  see  them, 
and  sprang  through  the  door,  down  the  steps, 
into  the  street  and  away.  A  stout  police- 
man, who  had  had  inferior  success  in  con- 
quering his  way  down  the  stairway,  followed 
a  moment  later  and  started  in  pursuit,  all  the 
heads  in  the  windows — those  of  women  and 
children  now — screaming  in  guidance. 

The  stairway  being  now  partly  cleared, 
most  of  the  crowd  having  rushed  down  to 
the  street  to  observe  the  flight  and  pursuit, 
Dr.  Helberson  mounted  to  the  landing,  fol- 
lowed by  Harper.  At  a  door  in  the  upper 
passage  an  officer  denied  them  admittance. 
"We  are  physicians,"  said  the  doctor,  and 
they  passed  in.  The  room  was  full  of  men, 
dimly  seen,  crowded  about  a  table.  The  new- 
comers edged  their  way  forward,  and  looked 
over  the  shoulders  of  those  in  the  front  rank. 
Upon  the  table,  the  lower  limbs  covered  with 
a  sheet,  lay  the  body  of  a  man,  brilliantly  il- 
luminated by  the  beam  of  a  bull's-eye  lantern 


A   WATCHER  /-T  THE  DEAD.  l8l 

held  by  a  policeman  standing  at  the  feet. 
The  others,  excepting  those  near  the  head — 
the  officer  himself— all  were  in  darkness.  The 
face  of  the  body  showed  yellow,  repulsive, 
horrible!  The  eyes  were  partly  open  and  up- 
turned, and  the  jaw  fallen;  traces  of  froth  de- 
nied the  lips,  the  chin,  the  cheeks.  A  tall 
man,  evidently  a  physician,  bent  over  the 
body  with  his  hand  thrust  under  the  shirt 
front.  He  withdrew  it  and  placed  two  fin- 
gers in  the  open  mouth.  "This  man  has 
been  about  two  hours  dead,"  said  he.  "  It  is 
a  case  for  the  coroner." 

He  drew  a  card  from  his  pocket,  handed  it 
to  the  officer,  and  made  his  way  toward  the 
door. 

"Clear  the  room — out,  all!"  said  the  offi- 
cer, sharply,  and  the  body  disappeared  as  if 
it  had  been  snatched  away,  as  he  shifted  the 
lantern  and  flashed  its  beam  of  light  here  and 
there  against  the  faces  of  the  crowd.  The  ef- 
fect was  amazing!  The  men,  blinded,  con- 
fused, almost  terrified,  made  a  tumultuous 
rush  for  the  door,  pushing,  crowding,  and 
tumbling  over  one  another  as  they  fled,  like 
the  hosts  of  Night  before  the  shafts  of  Apollo. 
Upon  the  struggling,  trampling  mass  the  of- 
ficer poured  his  light  without  pity  and  with- 


1 82  A   WATCHER  BY  THE  DEAD. 

out  cessation.  Caught  in  the  current,  Hel- 
berson  and  Harper  were  swept  out  of  the 
room  and  cascaded  down  the  stairs  into  the 
street. 

"Good  God,  doctor!  did  I  not  tell  you 
that  Jarette  would  kill  him  ? ' '  said  Harper,  as 
soon  as  they  were  clear  of  the  crowd. 

' '  I  believe  you  did, ' '  replied  the  other 
without  apparent  emotion. 

They  walked  on  in  silence,  block  after 
block.  Against  the  graying  east  the  dwell- 
ings of  our  hill  tribes  showed  in  silhouette. 
The  familiar  milk  wagon  was  already  astir  in 
the  streets;  the  baker's  man  would  soon  come 
upon  the  scene;  the  newspaper  carrier  was 
abroad  in  the  land. 

"It  strikes  me,  youngster,"  said  Helber- 
son,  "that  you  and  I  have  been  having  too 
much  of  the  morning  air  lately.  It  is  un- 
wholesome; we  need  a  change.  What  do 
you  say  to  a  tour  in  Europe?  " 

"When?" 

"I'm  not  particular.  I  should  suppose 
that  4  o'clock  this  afternoon  would  be  early 
enough." 

"I'll  meet  you  at  the  boat,"  said  Harper. 

V. 
Seven   years  afterward  these  two  men  sat 


A   WATCHER  BY  THE  DEAD.  183 

upon  a  bench  in  Madison  Square,  New  York, 
in  familiar  conversation.  Another  man,  who 
had  been  observing  them  for  some  time,  him- 
self unobserved,  approached  and,  courteously 
lifting  his  hat  from  locks  as  white  as  snow, 
said:  "  I  beg  your  pardon,  gentlemen,  but 
when  you  have  killed  a  man  by  coming  to 
life,  it  is  best  to  change  clothes  with  him,  and 
at  the  first  opportunity  make  a  break  for  lib- 
erty." 

Helberson  and  Harper  exchanged  signifi- 
cant glances.  They  were  apparently  amused. 
The  former  then  looked  the  stranger  kindly 
in  the  eye,  and  replied: — 

' '  That  has  always  been  my  plan.  I  entirely 
agree  with  you  as  to  its  advant ' ' 

He  stopped  suddenly  and  grew  deathly 
pale.  He  stared  at  the  man,  open-mouthed; 
he  trembled  visibly. 

"Ah! "said  the  stranger,  "I  see  that  you 
are  indisposed,  doctor.  If  you  cannot  treat 
yourself,  Dr.  Harper  can  do  something  for 
you,  I  am  sure." 

"Who  the  devil  are  you?"  said  Harper 
bluntly. 

The  stranger  came  nearer,  and,  bending 
toward  them,  said  in  a  whisper:  "I  call  my- 
self Jarette  sometimes,  but  I  don't  mind  tell- 


•184  A    WATCHER  /»T  TItK  DKAD. 

ing  you,   for  old  friendship,  that   I   am   Dr. 
William  Mancher." 

The  revelation  brought  both  men  to  their 
feet.  "Mancher!"  they  cried  in  a  breath; 
and  Helberson  added:  "  It  is  true,  by  God!" 

''Yes,"  said  the  stranger,  smiling  vaguely, 
"it  is  true  enough,  no  doubt." 

He  hesitated,  and  seemed  to  be  trying  to  re- 
call something,  then  began  humming  a  pop- 
ular air.  He  had  apparently  forgotten  their 
presence. 

"Look  here,  Mancher,"  said  the  elder  of 
the  two,  "tell  us  just  what  occurred  that 
night — to  Jarette,  you  know." 

"Oh,  yes,  about  Jarette,"  said  the  other. 
"It's  odd  I  should  have  neglected  to  tell  you 
—I  tell  it  so  often.  You  see  I  knew,  by 
overhearing  him  talking  to  himself,  that  he 
was  pretty  badly  frightened.  So  I  couldn't 
resist  the  temptation  to  come  to  life  and  have 
a  bit  of  fun  out  of  him — I  couldn't,  really. 
That  was  all  right,  though  certainly  I  did  not 
think  he  would  take  it  so  seriously;  f  did  not, 
truly.  And  afterward — well,  it  was  a  tough 
job  changing  places  with  him,  and  then — 
damn  you!  you  didn't  let  me  out!" 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  ferocity  with 
which  these  last  words  were  delivered.  Both 
men  stepped  back  in  alarm. 


A    WATCHER   BV   THE   DEAD.  1 8  5 

''We?  —  why  —  why,"  Helberson  stam- 
mered, losing  his  self-possession  utterly,  "we 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it. " 

"Didn't  I  say  you  were  Doctors  Hellborn 
and  Sharper  ?  "  inquired  the  lunatic,  laughing. 

"My  name  is  Helberson,  yes;  and  this 
gentleman  is  Mr.  Harper,"  replied  the  former, 
reassured.  "  But  we  are  not  physicians  now; 
we  are — well,  hang  it,  old  man,  we  are  gam- 
blers." 

And  that  was  the  truth. 

"A  very  good  profession — very  good,  in- 
deed; and,  by  the  way,  I  hope  Sharper  here 
paid  over  Jarette's  money  like  an  honest 
stakeholder.  A  very  good  and  honorable 
profession,"  he  repeated,  thoughtfully,  mov- 
ing carelessly  away;  "but  I  stick  to  the  old 
one.  I  am  High  Supreme  Medical  Officer  of 
the  Blooming-dale  Asylum;  it  is  my  duty  to 
cure  the  superintendent" 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  SNAKE. 

<•> 

It  is  of  veritabyll  report,  and  attested  of  so 
many  that  there  be  nowe  of  wyse  and  learned  none 
to  gaynsaye  it,  that  ye  serpente  hys  eye  hath  a 
magnetick  propertie  that  whosoe  falleth  into  its 
svasion  is  drawn  forwards  in  despyte  of  his  wille, 
and  perisheth  miserabyll  by  ye  creature  hys  byte. 

QTRETCHED  at  ease  upon  a  sofa,  in  gown 
^  and  slippers,  Harker  Brayton  smiled  as 
he  read  the  foregoing  sentence  in  old  Morrys- 
ter'  s  ' '  Marvells  of  Science. "  ' '  The  only  mar- 
vel in  the  matter,"  he  said  to  himself,  "is 
that  the  wise  and  learned  in  Morryster's  day 
should  have  believed  such  nonsense  as  is  re- 
jected by  most  of  even  the  ignorant  in  ours." 
A  train  of  reflections  followed — for  Bray- 
ton  was  a  man  of  thought — and  he  uncon- 
sciously lowered  his  book  without  altering 
the  direction  of  his  eyes.  As  soon  as  the 
volume  had  gone  below  the  line  of  sight, 
something  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the  room 
recalled  his  attention  to  his  surroundings. 
What  he  saw,  in  the  shadow  under  his  bed, 
were  two  small  points  of  light,  apparently 
about  an  inch  apart.  They  might  have  been 

(187) 


1 88  THE  MAN  AX D  THE  SNAKE. 

reflections  of  the  gas  jet  above  him,  in  metal 
nail  heads;  he  gave  them  but  little  thought 
and  resumed  his  reading.  A  moment  later 
something — some  impulse  which  it  did  not 
occur  to  him  to  analyze — impelled  him  to 
lower  the  book  again  and  seek  for  what  he 
saw  before.  The  points  of  light  were  still 
there.  They  seemed  to  have  become  brighter 
than  before,  shining  with  a  greenish  luster 
which  he  had  not  at  first  observed.  He 
thought,  too,  that  they  might  have  moved  a 
trifle — -were  somewhat  nearer.  They  were 
still  too  much  in  shadow,  however,  to  reveal 
their  nature  and  origin  to  an  indolent  atten- 
tion, and  he  resumed  his  reading.  Suddenly 
something  in  the  text  suggested  a  thought 
which  made  him  start  and  drop  the  book  for 
the  third  time  to  the  side  of  the  sofa,  whence, 
escaping  from  his  hand,  it  fell  sprawling  to  the 
floor,  back  upward.  Brayton,  halt  risen, 
was  staring  intently  into  the  obscurity  beneath 
the  bed,  where  the  points  of  light  shone 
with,  it  seemed  to  him>  an  added  fire.  His 
attention  was  now  fully  aroused,  his  gaze 
eager  and  imperative.  It  disclosed,  almost 
directly  beneath  the  foot-rail  of  the  bed,  the 
coils  of  a  large  serpent — the  points  of  light 
were  its  eyes!  Its  horrible  head,  thrust  flatly 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  SNAKE.  189 

forth  from  the  innermost  coil  and  resting  upon 
the  outermost,  was  directed  straight  toward 
him,  the  definition  of  the  wide,  brutal  jaw  and 
the  idiot-like  forehead  serving  to  show  the 
direction  of  its  malevolent  gaze.  The  eyes 
were  no  longer  merely  luminous  p'oints;  they 
looked  into  his  own  with  a  meaning,  a  malign 
significance. 

II. 

A  snake  in  a  bedroom  of  a  modern  city 
dwelling  of  the  better  sort  is,  happily,  not  so 
common  a  phenomenon  as  to  make  explana- 
tion altogether  needless.  Harker  Brayton,  a 
bachelor  of  thirty- five,  a  scholar,  idler,  and 
something  of  an  athlete,  rich,  popular,  and  of 
sound  health,  had  returned  to  San  Francisco 
from  all  ( manner  of  remote  and  unfamiliar 
countries.  His  tastes,  always  a  trifle  luxu- 
rious, had  taken  on  an  added  exuberance  from 
long  privation;  and  the  resources  of  even  the 
Castle  Hotel  being  inadequate  to  their  per- 
fect gratification,  he  had  gladly  accepted  the 
hospitality  of  his  friend,  Dr.  Druring,  the 
distinguished  scientist.  Dr.  Druring' s  house, 
a  large,  old-fashioned  one  in  what  was  now  an 
obscure  quarter  of  the  city,  had  an  outer  and 
visible  aspect  of  proud  reserve.  It  plainly 
would  not  associate  with  the  contiguous  ele- 


IQO  THE  MAN  AND  THE  SNAKE. 

ments  of  its  altered  environment,  and  ap- 
peared to  have  developed  some  of  the  eccen- 
tricities which  come  of  isolation.  One  of 
these  was  a  "wing,"  conspicuously  irrele- 
vant in  point  of  architecture,  and  no  less  re- 
bellious in  the  matter  of  purpose;  for  it  was  a 
combination  of  laboratory,  menagerie  and 
museum.  It  was  here  that  the  doctor  in- 
dulged the  scientific  side  of  his  nature  in  the 
study  of  such  forms  of  animal  life  as  engaged 
his  interest  and  comforted  his  taste — which, 
it  must  be  confessed,  ran  rather  to  the  lower 
forms.  For  one  of  the  higher  types  nimbly 
and  sweetly  to  recommend  itself  unto  his  gen- 
tle senses,  it  had  at  least  to  retain  certain  ru- 
dimentary characteristics  allying  it  to  such 
"dragons  of  the  prime"  as  toads  and  snakes. 
His  scientific  sympathies  were  distinctly  rep- 
tilian; he  loved  nature's  vulgarians  and  de- 
scribed himself  as  the  Zola  of  zoology.  His 
wife  and  daughters  not  having  the  advantage 
to  share  his  enlightened  curiosity  regarding 
the  works  and  ways  of  our  ill-starred  fellow- 
creatures,  were,  with  needless  austerity,  ex- 
cluded from  what  he  called  the  Snakery,  and 
doomed  to  companionship  with  their  own 
kind,  though,  to  soften  the  rigors  of  their  lot, 
he  had  permitted  them,  out  of  his  great  wealth, 


THE  J/./A"  .-I.VZ?   THE  SNAKE.  IQI 

to  outdo  the  reptiles  in  the  gorgeousness  of 
their  surroundings  and  to  shine  with  a  supe- 
rior splendor. 

Architecturally,  and  in  point  of  "  furnish- 
ing," the  Snakery  had  a  severe  simplicity  be- 
htting  the  humble  circumstances  of  its  occu- 
pants, many  of  whom,  indeed,  could  not 
safely  have  been  intrusted  with  the  liberty 
which  is  necessary  to  the  full  enjoyment  of 
luxury,  for  they  had  the  troublesome  pecul- 
iarity of  being  alive.  In  their  own  apartments, 
however,  they  were  under  as  little  personal 
restraint  as  was  compatible  with  their  protec- 
tion from  the  baneful  habit  of  swallowing  one 
another;  and,  as  Bray  ton  had  thoughtfully 
been  apprised,  it  was  more  than  a  tradition 
that  some  of  them  had  at  divers  times  been 
found  in  parts  of  the  premises  where  it  would 
have  embarrassed  them  to  explain  their  pres- 
ence. Despite  the  Snakery  and  its  uncanny 
associations — to  which,  indeed,  he  gave  little 
attention — Brayton  found  life  at  the  Druring 
mansion  very  much  to  his  mind. 

in. 

Beyond  a  smart  shock  of  surprise  and  a 
shudder  of  mere  loathing,  Mr.  Brayton  was 
not  greatly  affected.  His  first  thought  was 


192  THE  MAX  AND    THE  XXAKE. 

to  ring  the  call  bell  and  bring  a  servant;  but, 
although  the  bell  cord  dangled  within  easy 
reach,  he  made  no  movement  toward  it;  it 
had  occurred  to  his  mind  that  the  act  might 
subject  him  to  the  suspicion  of  fear,  which  he 
certainly  did  not  feel.  He  was  more  keenly 
conscious  of  the  incongruous  nature  of  the 
situation  than  affected  by  its  perils;  it  was  re- 
volting, but  absurd. 

The  reptile  was  of  a  species  with  which 
Brayton  was  unfamiliar.  Its  length  he  could 
only  conjecture;  the  body  at  the  largest  visible 
part  seemed  about  as  thick  as  his  forearm. 
In  what  way  was  it  dangerous,  if  in  any  way? 
Was  it  venomous?  Was  it  a  constrictor? 
His  knowledge  of  nature's  danger  signals  did 
not  enable  him  to  say;  he  had  never  deci- 
phered the  code. 

If  not  dangerous,  the  creature  was  at  least 
offensive.  It  was  de  trop — "matter  out  of 
place" — an  impertinence.  The  gem  was  un- 
worthy of  the  setting.  Even  the  barbarous 
taste  of  our  time  and  country,  which  had 
loaded  the  walls  of  the  room  with  pictures, 
the  floor  with  urniture  and  the  furniture  with 
bric-a-brac,  had  not  quite  fitted  the  place  for 
this  bit  of  the  savage  life  of  the  jungle.  Be- 
sides— insupportable  thought!— the  exhalations 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  SNAKE.  193 

of  its   breath  mingled  with  the  atmosphere 
which  he  himself  was  breathing! 

These  thoughts  shaped  themselves  with 
greater  or  less  definition  in  Brayton's  mind, 
and  begot  action.  The  process  is  what  we 
call  consideration  and  decision.  It  is  thus 
that  we  are  wise  and  unwise.  It  is  thus  that 
the  withered  leaf  in  an  autumn  breeze  shows 
greater  or  less  intelligence  than  its  fellows, 
falling  upon  the  land  or  upon  the  lake.  The 
secret  of  human  action  is  an  open  one:  some- 
thing contracts  our  muscles.  Does  it  mat- 
ter if  we  give  to  the  preparatory  molecular 
changes  the  name  of  will  ? 

Brayton  rose  to  his  feet  and  prepared  to  back 
softly  away  from  the  snake,  without  disturb- 
ing it,  if  possible,  and  through  the  door. 
People  retire  so  from  the  presence  of  the 
great,  for  greatness  is  power,  and  power  is  a 
menace.  He  knew  that  he  could  walk  back- 
ward without  obstruction,  and  find  the  door 
without  error.  Should  the  monster  follow, 
the  taste  which  had  plastered  the  walls  with 
paintings  had  consistently  supplied  a  rack  of 
murderous  Oriental  weapons  from  which  he 
could  snatch  one  to  suit  the  occasion.  In 
the  meantime  the  snake's  eyes  burned  with 
a  more  pitiless  malevolence  than  ever. 
13 


THE  MAX  AND   THE  S 


Brayton  lifted  his  right  foot  free  of  the  floor 
to  step  backward.  That  moment  he  felt  a 
strong  aversion  to  doing  so. 

"  I  am  accounted  brave,"  he  murmured; 
"is  bravery,  then,  no  more  than  pride?  He- 
cause  there  are  none  to  witness  the  shame 
shall  I  retreat  ?  '  ' 

He  was  steadying  himself  with  his  right 
hand  upon  the  back  of  a  chair,  his  foot  sus- 
pended. 

"Nonsense!"  he  said  aloud;  "I  am  not 
so  great  a  coward  as  to  fear  to  seem  to  myself 
afraid." 

He  lifted  the  foot  a  little  higher  by  slightly 
bending  the  knee,  and  thrust  it  sharply  to 
the  floor  —  an  inch  in  front  of  the  other! 
He  could  not  think  how  that  occurred.  A 
trial  with  the  left  foot  had  the  same  result;  it 
was  again  in  advance  of  the  right.  The  hand 
upon  the  chair  back  was  grasping  it;  the  arm 
was  straight,  reaching  somewhat  backward. 
One  might  have  seen  that  he  was  reluctant  to 
lose  his  hold.  The  snake's  malignant  head 
was  still  thrust  forth  from  the  inner  coil  as  be- 
fore, the  neck  level.  It  had  not  moved,  but 
its  eyes  were  now  electric  sparks,  radiating 
an  infinity  of  luminous  needles. 

The    man  had  an  ashy  pallor.     Again  he 


THE  MAN  AND    THE  SNAKE.  195 

took  a  step  forward,  and  another,  partly  drag- 
ging the  chair,  which,  when  finally  released, 
fell  upon  the  floor  with  a  crash.  The  man 
groaned;  the  snake  made  neither  sound  nor 
inotion,  but  its  eyes  were  two  dazzling  suns. 
The  reptile  itself  was  wholly  concealed  by 
them.  They  gave  off  enlarging  rings  of  rich 
and  vivid  colors,  which  at  their  greatest  ex- 
pansion successively  vanished  like  soap  bub- 
bles; they  seemed  to  approach  his  very  face, 
and  anon  were  an  immeasurable  distance 
away.  He  heard,  somewhere,  the  contin- 
uous throbbing  of  a  great  drum,  with  desul- 
tory bursts  of  far  music,  inconceivably  sweet, 
like  the  tones  of  an  aeolian  harp.  He  knew 
it  for  the  sunrise  melody  of  Memnon's  statue, 
and  thought  he  stood  in  the  Nileside  reeds, 
hearing,  with  exalted  sense,  that  immortal  an- 
them through  the  silence  of  the  centuries. 

The  music  ceased;  rather,  it  became  by  in- 
sensible degrees  the  distant  roll  of  a  retreat- 
ing thunder-storm.  A  landscape,  glittering 
with  sun  and  rain,  stretched  before  him, 
arched  with  a  vivid  rainbow,  framing  in  its 
giant  curve  a  hundred  visible  cities.  In  the 
middle  distance  a  vast  serpent,  wearing  a 
crown,  reared  its  head  out  of  its  voluminous 
convolutions  and  looked  at  him  with  his  dead 


196  THE  MAN  AND   THE  SNAKE. 

mother's  eyes.  Suddenly  this  enchanting 
landscape  seemed  to  rise  swiftly  upward,  like 
the  drop  scene  at  a  theater,  and  vanished  in 
a  blank.  Something  struck  him  a  hard  blow 
upon  the  face  and  breast.  He  had  fallen  to 
the  floor;  the  blood  ran  from  his  broken  nose 
and  his  bruised  lips.  For  a  moment  he  was 
dazed  and  stunned,  and  lay  with  closed  eyes, 
his  face  against  the  floor.  In  a  few  moments 
he  had  recovered,  and  then  realized  that  his 
fall,  by  withdrawing  his  eyes,  had  broken  the 
spell  which  held  him.  He  felt  that  now,  by 
keeping  his  gaze  averted,  he  would  be  able 
to  retreat.  But  the  thought  of  the  serpent 
within  a  few  feet  of  his  head,  yet  unseen — 
perhaps  in  the  very  act  of  springing  upon 
him  and  throwing  its  coils  about  his  throat — 
was  too  horrible.  He  lifted  his  head,  stared 
again  into  those  baleful  eyes,  and  was  again 
in  bondage. 

The  snake  had  not  moved,  and  appeared 
somewhat  to  have  lost  its  power  upon  the  im- 
agination; the  gorgeous  illusions  of  a  few 
moments  before  were  not  repeated.  Beneath 
that  flat  and  brainless  brow  its  black,  beady 
eyes  simply  glittered,  as  at  first,  with  an  ex- 
pression unspeakably  malignant.  It  was  as 
if  the  creature,  knowing  its  triumph  assured, 


THE  MAX  AXD  THE  SNAKE,      197 

had  determined  to  practice  no  more  alluring 
wiles. 

Now  ensued  a  fearful  scene.  The  man, 
prone  upon  the  floor,  within  a  yard  of  his  en- 
emy, raised  the  upper  part  of  his  body  upon 
his  elbows,  his  head  thrown  back,  his  legs  ex- 
tended to  their  full  length.  His  face  was 
white  between  its  gouts  of  blood;  his  eyes 
were  strained  open  to  their  uttermost  expan- 
sion. There  was  froth  upon  his  lips;  it 
dropped  off  in  flakes.  Strong  convulsions 
ran  through  his  body,  making  almost  serpen- 
tine undulations.  He  bent  himself  at  the 
waist,  shifting  his  legs  from  side  to  side.  And 
every  movement  left  him  a  little  nearer  to  the 
snake.  He  thrust  his  hands  forward  to  brace 
himself  back,  yet  constantly  advanced  upon 
his  elbows. 

IV. 

Dr.  Druring  and  his  wife  sat  in  the  library. 
The  scientist  was  in  rare  good  humor. 

' '  I  have  just  obtained,  by  exchange  with 
another  collector,"  he  said,  "a  splendid 
specimen  of  the  ophiophagus" 

"And  what  may  that  be?"  the  lady  in- 
quired with  a  somewhat  languid  interest. 

"Why,  bless  my  soul,  what  profound  ig- 
norance! My  dear,  a  man  who  ascertains 


198  THE  .VAX  AXD   THE  SXAKE. 

after  marriage  that  his  wife  does  not  know 
Greek,  is  entitled  to  a  divorce.  The  ophioph- 
agus  is  a  snake  which  eats  other  snakes." 

"  I  hope  it  will  eat  all  yours,"  she  said,  ab- 
sently shifting  the  lamp.  "  But  how  does  it. 
get  the  other  snakes  ?  By  charming  them,  I 
suppose." 

"That  is  just  like  you,  dear,"  said  the 
doctor,  with  an  affectation  of  petulance.  '  'You 
know  how  irritating  to  me  is  any  allusion  to 
that  vulgar  superstition  about  the  snake's 
power  of  fascination." 

The  conversation  was  interrupted  by  a 
mighty  cry,  which  rang  through  the  silent 
house  like  the  voice  of  a  demon  shouting  in  a 
tomb!  Again  and  yet  again  it  sounded,  with 
terrible  distinctness.  They  sprang  to  their 
feet,  the  man  confused,  the  lady  pale  and 
speechless  with  fright.  Almost  before  the 
echoes  of  the  last  cry  had  died  away,  the  doc- 
tor was  out  of  the  room,  springing  up  the 
staircase  two  steps  at  a  time.  In  the  corri- 
dor, in  front  of  Brayton's  chamber,  he  met 
some  servants  who  had  come  from  the  upper 
floor.  Together  they  rushed  at  the  door 
without  knocking.  It  was  unfastened  and 
gave  way.  Brayton  lay  upon  his  stomach  on 
the  floor,  dead.  His  head  and  arms  were 


THE  ^T^^~  AXD  THE  SNAKE.  199 

partly  concealed  under  the  foot  rail  of  the 
bed.  They  pulled  the  body  away,  turning  it 
upon  the  back.  The  face  was  daubed  with 
blood  and  froth,  the  eyes  were  wide  open, 
staring — a  dreadful  sight! 

"  Died  in  a  fit,  said  the  scientist,''  bending 
his  knee  and  placing  his  hand  upon  the  heart. 
While  in  that  position,  he  happened  to  glance 
under  the  bed.  "Good  God!"  he  added, 
"  how  did  this  thing  get  in  here? " 

He  reached  under  the  bed,  pulled  out  the 
snake,  and  flung  it,  still  coiled,  to  the  center 
of  the  room,  whence,  with  a  harsh,  shuffling 
sound,  it  slid  across  the  polished  floor  till 
stopped  by  the  wall,  where  it  lay  without  mo- 
tion. It  was  a  stuffed  snake;  its  eyes  were 
two  shoe  buttons. 


A  HOLY  TERROR. 

HHHERE  was  an  entire  lack  of  interest  in  the 
latest  arrival  at  Hurdy-Gurdy.  He  was 
not  even  christened  with  the  picturesquely  de- 
scriptive nickname  which  is  so  frequently  a 
mining  camp's  word  of  welcome  to  the  new- 
comer. In  almost  any  other  camp  there- 
about this  circumstance  would  of  itself  have 
secured  him  some  such  appellation  as  "The 
White-headed  Conundrum, ' '  or  ' '  No  Sarvey' ' 
— an  expression  naively  supposed  to  suggest 
to  quick  intelligences  the  Spanish  quien  sabe, 
He  came  without  provoking  a  ripple  of  con- 
cern upon  the  social  surface  of  Hurdy-Gurdy 
— a  place  which,  to  the  general  Californian  con- 
tempt of  men's  personal  antecedents  super- 
added  a  local  indifference  of  its  own.  The 
time  was  long  past  when  it  was  of  any  impor- 
tance who  came  there,  or  if  anybody  came. 
No  one  was  living  at  Hurdy-Gurdy. 

Two  years  before,  the  camp  had  boasted  a 

stirring  population  of  two  or  three  thousand 

males,  and  not  fewer  than  a  dozen  females. 

A  majority  of  the   former   had  done   a  few 

(200) 


A  HOLY  TERROR.  2OI 

weeks'  earnest  work  in  demonstrating,  to  the 
disgust  of  the  latter,  the  singularly  mendacious 
character  of  the  person  whose  ingenious  tales 
of  rich  gold  deposits  had  lured  them  thither 
— work,  by  the  way,  in  which  there  was  as 
little  mental  satisfaction  as  pecuniary  profit; 
for  a  bullet  from  the  pistol  of  a  public-spirited 
citizen  had  put  that  imaginative  gentleman 
beyond  the  reach  of  aspersion  on  the  third 
day  of  the  camp's  existence.  Still,  his  fiction 
had  a  certain  foundation  in  fact,  and  many 
had  lingered  a  considerable  time  in  and  about 
Hurdy-Gurdy,  though  now  all  had  been  long 
gone. 

But  they  had  left  ample  evidence  of  their 
sojourn.  From  the  point  where  Injun  Creek 
falls  into  the  Rio  San  Juan  Smith,  up  along  both 
banks  of  the  former  into  the  canon  whence  it 
emerges,  extended  a  double  row  of  forlorn 
shanties  that  seemed  about  to  fall  upon  one 
another's  neck  to  bewail  their  desolation; 
while  about  an  equal  number  appeared  to 
have  straggled  up  the  slope  on  either  hand, 
and  perched  themselves  upon  commanding 
eminences,  whence  they  craned  forward  to  get 
a  good  view  of  the  affecting  scene.  Most  of 
these  habitations  were  emaciated,  as  by  fam- 
ine, to  the  condition  of  mere  skeletons,  about 


2O2  A  HOLY  TERROR. 

which  clung  unlovely  tatters  of  what  might 
have  been  skin,  but  was  really  canvas.  The 
little  valley  itself,  torn  and  gashed  by  pick  and 
shovel,  was  unhandsome,  with  long,  bending 
lines  of  decaying  flume  resting  here  and  there 
upon  the  summits  of  sharp  ridges,  and  stilt- 
ing awkwardly  across  the  interspaces  upon 
unhewn  poles.  The  whole  place  presented 
that  raw  and  forbidding  aspect  of  arrested  de- 
velopment which  is  a  new  country's  substitute 
for  the  solemn  grace  of  ruin  wrought  by  time. 
Whenever  there  remained  a  patch  of  the  orig- 
inal soil,  a  rank  overgrowth  of  weeds  and  bram- 
bles had  spread  upon  the  scene,  and  from  its 
dank,  unwholesome  shades  the  visitor  curi- 
ous in  such  matters  might  have  obtained 
numberless  souvenirs  of  the  camp's  former 
glory — fellowless  boots  mantled  with  green 
mold  and  plethoric  of  rotting  leaves;  an  oc- 
casional old  felt  hat;  desultory  remnants  of  a 
flannel  shirt;  sardine  boxes  inhumanly  muti- 
lated, and  a  surprising  profusion  of  black  bot- 
tles, distributed  with  a  truly  catholic  impar- 
tiality, everywhere. 

n. 

The  man  who  had  now  rediscovered  Hurdy- 
Gurdy  was  evidently  not  curious  as  to  its 
archaeology.  Nor,  as  he  looked  about  him 


A  HOLY  TERROR.  2C>3 

upon  the  dismal  evidences  of  wasted  work 
and  broken  hopes,  their  dispiriting  signifi- 
cance accentuated  by  the  ironical  pomp  of  a 
cheap  gilding  by  the  rising  sun,  did  he  sup- 
plement his  sigh  of  weariness  by  one  of  sensi- 
bility. He  simply  removed  from  the  back  of 
his  tired  burro  a  miner's  outfit  a  trifle  larger 
than  the  animal  itself,  picketed  that  creature, 
and,  selecting  a  hatchet  from  his  kit,  moved 
off  at  once  across  the  dry  bed  of  Injun  Creek 
to  the  top  of  a  low,  gravelly  hill  beyond. 

Stepping  across  a  prostrate  fence  of  brush 
and  boards,  he  picked  up  one  of  the  latter, 
split  it  into  five  parts,  and  sharpened  them  at 
one  end.  He  then  began  a  kind  of  search, 
occasionally  stooping  to  examine  something 
with  close  attention.  At  last  his  patient  scru- 
tiny appeared  to  be  rewarded  with  success, 
for  he  suddenly  erected  his  figure  to  its  full 
height,  made  a  gesture  of  satisfaction,  pro- 
nounced the  word  ' '  Scarry, ' '  and  at  once 
strode  away,  with  long,  equal  steps,  which  he 
counted,  then  stopped  and  drove  one  of  his 
stakes  into  the  earth.  He  then  looked  care- 
fully about  him,  measured  off  a  number  of 
paces  over  a  singularly  uneven  ground,  and 
hammered  in  another.  Pacing  off  twice  the 
distance  at  a  right  angle  to  his  former  course; 


2O4  A   HOLY  TERROR. 

he  drove  down  a  third,  and,  repeating  the 
process,  sank  home  the  fourth,  and  then  a 
fifth.  This  he  split  at  the  top,  and  in  the 
cleft  inserted  an  old  letter  envelope,  covered 
with  an  intricate  system  of  pencil  tracks.  In 
short,  he  staked  off  a  hill  claim  in  strict  ac- 
cordance with  the  local  mining  laws  of  Hurdy- 
Gurdy,  and  put  up  the  customary  notice. 

It  is  necessary  to  explain  that  one  of  the 
adjuncts  to  Hurdy-Gurdy — one  to  which  that 
metroplis  became  afterward  itself  an  adjunct 
— was  a  cemetery.  In  the  first  week  of  the 
camp's  existence  this  had  been  thoughtfully 
laid  out  by  a  committee  of  citizens.  The  day 
after  had  been  signalized  by  a  debate  between 
two  members  of  the  committee,  with  reference 
to  a  more  eligible  site,  and  on  the  third  day 
the  necropolis  was  inaugurated  by  a  double 
funeral.  As  the  camp  had  waned  the  ceme- 
tery had  waxed;  and  long  before  the  ultimate 
inhabitant,  victorious  alike  over  the  insid- 
ious malaria  and  the  forthright  revolver,  had 
turned  the  tail  of  his  pack-ass  upon  Injun 
Creek,  the  outlying  settlement  had  become  a 
populous  if  not  popular  suburb.  And  now, 
when  the  town  was  fallen  into  the  sere  and 
yellow  leaf  of  an  unlovely  senility,  the  grave- 
yard— though  somewhat  marred  by  time  and 


A  HOLY  TERROR.  2O5 

circumstance,  and  not  altogether  exempt  from 
innovations  in  grammar  and  experiments  in 
orthography,  to  say  nothing  of  the  devastating 
coyote — answered  the  humble  needs  of   its 
denizens  with  reasonable   completeness.       It 
comprised  a  generous  two  acres  of  ground, 
which,  with  commendable  thrift  but  needless 
care,  had  been  selected  for  its  mineral  unworth, 
contained  two  or  three  skeleton  trees  (one  of 
which  had  a  stout  lateral  branch  from  which  a 
weather-wasted   rope  still  significantly   dan- 
gled), half  a   hundred  gravelly   mounds,   a 
score  of  rude  headboards  displaying  the  lit- 
erary peculiarities  above   mentioned,  and  a 
struggling   colony   of  prickly  pears.      Alto- 
gether, God's  Location,  as  with  characteristic 
reverence   it   had   been   called,   could  justly 
boast  of   an   indubitably  superior  quality  of 
desolation.     It  was  in  the  most  thickly  settled 
portion  of  this  interesting  demesne  that  Mr. 
Jefferson  Doman  staked  off  his  claim.     If  in 
the  prosecution  of  his  design  he  should  deem 
it  expedient  to  remove  any  of  the  dead,  they 
would  have  the  right  to  be  suitably  re-interred. 

in. 

This  Mr.  Jefferson  Doman  was  from  Eliz- 
abethtown,  New  Jersey,  where,  six  years  be- 


2O6  A  HOLY  TERROR. 

fore,  he  had  left  his  heart  in  the  keeping 
of  a  golden-haired,  demure-mannered  young 
woman  named  Mary  Matthews,  as  collateral 
security  for  his  return  to  claim  her  hand. 

"I  just  know  you'll  never  get  back  alive — 
you  never  do  succeed  in  anything, ' '  was  the 
remark  which  illustrated  Miss  Matthews' 
notion  of  what  constituted  success,  and,  in- 
cidentally, her  view  of  the  nature  of  encour- 
agement. She  added:  "If  you  don't  I'll  go 
to  California  too.  I  can  put  the  coins  in  little 
bags  as  you  dig  them  out." 

This  characteristically  feminine  theory  of 
auriferous  deposits  did  not  commend  itself  to 
the  masculine  intelligence:  it  was  Mr.  Do- 
man's  belief  that  gold  was  found  in  a  liquid 
condition.  He  deprecated  her  intent  with 
considerable  enthusiasm,  suppressed  her  sobs 
with  a  light  hand  upon  her  mouth,  laughed 
in  her  eyes  as  he  kissed  away  her  tears,  and, 
with  a  cheerful  "Ta-ta,"  went  to  California  to 
labor  for  her  through  the  long,  loveless  years, 
with  a  strong  heart,  an  alert  hope,  and  a 
steadfast  fidelity  that  never  for  a  moment  for- 
got what  it  was  about.  In  the  meantime  Miss 
Matthews  had  granted  a  monopoly  of  her 
humble  talent  for  sacking  up  coins  to  Mr.  Jo 
Seeman,  of  New  York,  gambler,  by  whom  it 


A  HOLY  TERROR.  2OJ 

was  better  appreciated  than  her  commanding 
genius  for  unsacking  and  bestowing  them 
upon  his  local  rivals.  Of  this  latter  aptitude, 
indeed,  he  manifested  his  disapproval  by  an 
act  which  secured  him  the  position  of  clerk  of 
the  prison  laundry  at  Sing  Sing,  and  for  her 
the  sobriquet  of  "Split-faced  Moll."  At 
about  this  time  she  wrote  to  Mr.  Doman  a 
touching  letter  of  renunciation,  inclosing  her 
photograph  to  prove  that  she  had  no  longer 
a  right  to  indulge  the  dream  of  becoming 
-Mrs.  Doman,  and  recounting  so  graphically 
her  fall  from  a  horse  that  the  staid  bronco 
upon  which  Mr.  Doman  had  ridden  into  Red 
Dog  to  get  the  letter,  made  vicarious  atone- 
ment under  the  spur  all  the  way  back  to 
camp.  The  letter  failed  in  a  signal  way  to 
accomplish  its  object;  the  fidelity  which  had 
before  been  to  Mr.  Doman  a  matter  of  love 
and  duty,  was  thenceforth  a  matter  of  honor 
also;  and  the  photograph,  showing  the  once 
pretty  face  sadly  disfigured  as  by  the  slash  of 
a  knife,  was  duly  instated  in  his  affections, 
and  its  more  comely  predecessor  treated  with 
contumelious  neglect.  On  being  apprised  of 
this,  Miss  Matthews,  it  is  only  fair  to  say,  ap- 
peared less  surprised  than  from  the  apparently 
low  estimate  of  Mr.  Doman 's 


2O8  A  HOLY  TERROR. 

which  the  tone  of  her  former  letter  attested, 
one  would  naturally  have  expected  her  to  be. 
Soon  after,  however,  her  letters  grew  infre- 
quent, and  then  ceased  altogether. 

But  Mr.  Doman  had  another  correspond- 
ent, Mr.  Barney  Bree,  of  Hurdy-Gurdy, 
formerly  of  Red  Dog.  This  gentleman,  al- 
though a  notable  figure  among  miners,  was 
not  a  miner.  His  knowledge  of  mining  con- 
sisted mainly  in  a  marvelous  command  of 
its  slang,  to  which  he  made  copious  contribu- 
tions, enriching  its  vocabulary  with  a  wealth 
of  extraordinary  phrases  more  remarkable  for 
their  aptness  than  their  refinement,  and  which 
impressed  the  unlearned  "tender-foot"  with 
a  lively  sense  of  the  profundity  of  their  in- 
ventor's acquirements.  When  not  entertain- 
ing a  circle  of  admiring  auditors  from  San 
Francisco  or  the  East  he  could  commonly  be 
found  pursuing  the  comparatively  obscure 
industry  of  sweeping  out  the  various  dance 
houses  and  purifying  the  spittoons. 

Barney  had  apparently  but  two  passions  in 
life — love  of  Jefferson  Doman,  who  had  once 
been  of  some  service  to  him,  and  love  of  whisky, 
which  certainly  had  not.  He  had  been 
among  the  first  in  the  rush  to  Hurdy-Gurdy, 
but  had  not  prospered,  and  had  sunk  by  de- 


A  HOLY  TERROR.  2C»9 

grees  to  the  position  of  grave  digger.  This 
was  not  a  vocation,  but  Barney  in  a  desultory 
way  turned  his  trembling  hand  to  it  whenever 
some  local  misunderstanding  at  the  card  table 
and  his  own  partial  recovery  from  a  prolonged 
debauch  occurred  coincidently  in  point  of 
time.  One  day  Mr.  Doman  received,  at  Red 
Dog,  a  letter  with  the  simple  postmark, 
"Hurdy,  Cal.,"  and  being  occupied  with 
another  matter,  carelessly  thrust  it  into  a  chink 
of  his  cabin  for  future  perusal.  Some  two 
years  later  it  was  accidentally  dislodged,  and 
he  read  it.  It  ran  as  follows:  — 

"  HURDY,  June  6. 

<(  FRIEND  JEFF:  I've  hit  her  hard  in  the  bone- 
yard.  She's  blind  and  lousy.  I'm  on  the  divvy — 
that's  me,  and  mum's  my  lay  till  you  toot. 

"Yours,        BARNEY. 
"P.  S. — I've  clayed  her  with  Scarry." 

With  some  knowledge  of  the  general  min- 
ing camp  argot  and  of  Mr.  Bree's  private 
system  for  the  communication  of  ideas,  Mr. 
Doman  had  no  difficulty  in  understanding  by 
this  uncommon  epistle  that  Barney,  while 
performing  his  duty  as  grave  digger,  had  un- 
covered a  quartz  ledge  with  no  outcroppings; 
that  it  was  visibly  rich  in  free  gold;  that, 
moved  by  considerations  of  friendship,  he 


2IO  A  HOLY  TERROR. 

was  willing  to  accept  Mr.  Doman  as  a  partner, 
and,  pending  that  gentleman's  declaration  of 
his  will  in  the  matter,  would  discreetly  keep 
the  discovery  a  secret.  From  the  postscript 
it  was  plainly  inferable  that,  in  order  to  con- 
ceal the  treasure,  he  had  buried  above  it  the 
mortal  part  of  a  person  named  Scarry. 

From  subsequent  events,  as  related  to  Mr. 
Doman,  at  Red  Dog,  it  would  appear  that 
before  taking  this  precaution  Mr.  Bree  had 
the  thrift  to  remove  a  modest  competency  of 
the  gold;  at  any  rate,  it  was  about  that  time 
that  he  entered  upon  that  memorable  series 
of  potations  and  treatings  which  is  still  one  of 
the  cherished  traditions  of  the  San  Juan 
Smith  country,  and  is  spoken  of  with  respect 
as  far  away  as  Ghost  Rock  and  Lone  Hand. 
At  its  conclusion,  some  former  citizens  of 
Hurdy-Gurdy,  for  whom  he  had  performed 
the  last  kindly  office  at  the  cemetery,  made 
room  for  him  among  them,  and  he  rested 
well. 

IV. 

Having  finished  staking  off  his  claim,  Mr. 
Doman  walked  back  to  the  center  of  it  and 
stood  again  at  the  spot  where  his  search 
among  the  graves  had  expired  in  the  excla- 
mation, ' '  Scarry. ' '  He  bent  again  over  the 


A  HOLY  TERROR.  211 

headboard  which  bore  that  name,  and,  as  if  to 
re-inforce  the  senses  of  sight  and  hearing, 
ran  his  forefinger  along  the  rudely-carved 
letters,  and,  re-erecting  himself,  appended 
orally  to  the  simple  inscription  the  shockingly 
forthright  epitaph,  "  She  was  a  holy  terror  1" 
Had  Mr.  Doman  been  required  to  make 
these  words  good  with  proof — as,  considering 
their  somewhat  censorious  character,  he  doubt- 
less should  have  been — he  would  have  found 
himself  embarrassed  by  the  absence  of  reputa- 
ble witnesses,  and  hearsay  evidence  would 
have  been  the  best  he  could  command.  At 
the  time  when  Scarry  had  been  prevalent 
in  the  mining  camps  thereabout — when,  as 
the  editor  of  the  Hurdy  Herald  would  have 
phrased  it,  she  was  "  in  the  plentitude  of  her 
power" — Mr.  Doman' s fortunes  had  been  at  a 
low  ebb,  and  he  had  led  the  vagrantly  labo- 
rious life  of  a  prospector.  His  time  had  been 
mostly  spent  in  the  mountains,  now  with  one 
companion,  now  with  another.  It  was  from 
the  admiring  recitals  of  these  casual  partners, 
fresh  from  the  various  camps,  that  his  judg- 
ment of  Scarry  had  been  made  up;  himself 
had  never  had  the  doubtful  advantage  of  her 
acquaintance  and  the  precarious  distinction  of 
her  favor.  And  when,  finally,  on  the  termi- 


212  A  HOLY  TERROR. 

nation  of  her  perverse  career  at  Hurdy- 
Gurdy,  he  had  read  in  a  chance  copy  of  the 
Herald  her  column-long  obituary  (written  by 
the  local  humorist  of  that  lively  sheet  in  the 
highest  style  of  his  art),  Doman  had  paid  to 
her  memory  and  to  her  historiographer's 
genius  the  tribute  of  a  smile,  and  chivalrously 
forgotten  her.  Standing  now  at  the  grave-side 
of  this  mountain  Messalina,  he  recalled  the 
leading  events  of  her  turbulent  career,  as  he 
had  heard  them  celebrated  at  his  various 
camp  fires,  and,  perhaps  with  an  unconscious 
attempt  at  self-justification,  repeated  that  she 
was  a  holy  terror,  and  sank  his  pick  into  her 
grave  up  to  the  handle.  At  that  moment  a 
raven,  which  had  silently  settled  upon  a 
branch  of  the  blasted  tree  above  his  head, 
solemnly  snapped  its  beak  and  uttered  its 
mind  about  the  matter  with  an  approving 
croak. 

Pursuing  his  discovery  of  free  gold  with 
great  zeal,  which  he  probably  credited  to  his 
conscience  as  a  grave  digger,  Mr.  Barney  Bree 
had  made  an  unusually  deep  sepulcher,  and  it 
was  near  sunset  before  Mr.  Doman,  laboring 
with  the  leisurely  deliberation  of  one  who  has 
a  ' '  dead  sure  thing ' '  and  no  fear  of  an  adverse 
claimant's  enforcement  of  a  prior  right,  reached 


A   HOLY  TERROR.  21  3 

the  coffin  and  uncovered  it.  When  he  had 
done  so,  he  was  confronted  by  a  difficulty  for 
which  he  had  made  no  provision;  the  coffin — 
a  mere  flat  shell  of  not  very  well-preserved 
redwood  boards,  apparently — had  no  handles, 
and  it  filled  the  entire  bottom  of  tlie  excavation. 
The  best  he  could  do  without  violating  the  de- 
cent sanctities  of  the  situation,  was  to  make  the 
excavation  sufficiently  longer  to  enable  him  to 
stand  at  the  head  of  the  casket,  and,  getting  his 
powerful  hands  underneath,  erect  it  upon  its 
narrower  end;  and  this  he  proceeded  to  do. 
The  approach  of  night  quickened  his  efforts. 
He  had  no  thought  of  abandoning  his  task  at 
this  stage,  to  resume  it  on  the  morrow  under 
more  advantageous  conditions.  The  feverish 
stimulation  of  cupidity  and  the  fascination  of 
terror  held  him  to  his  dismal  work  with  an 
iron  authority.  He  no  longer  idled,  but 
wrought  with  a  terrible  zeal.  His  head  un- 
covered, his  upper  garments  discarded,  his 
shirt  opened  at  the  neck  and  thrown  back 
from  his  breast,  down  which  ran  sinuous  rills 
of  perspiration,  this  hardy  and  impenitent 
gold-getter  and  grave-robber  toiled  with  a 
giant  energy  that  almost  dignified  the  char- 
acter of  his  horrible  purpose,  and  when  the 
sun  fringes  had  burned  themselves  out  along 


214  A  H°LY  TERROR. 

the  crest  line  of  the  western  hills,  and  the  full 
moon  had  climbed  out  of  the  shadows  that 
lay  along  the  purple  plain,  he  had  erected  the 
coffin  upon  its  foot,  where  it  stood  propped 
against  the  end  of  the  open  grave.  Then,  as 
the  man,  standing  up  to  his  neck  in  the  earth 
at  the  opposite  extreme  of  the  excavation, 
looked  at  the  coffin  upon  which  the  moon- 
light now  fell  with  a  full  illumination,  he  was 
thrilled  with  a  sudden  terror  to  observe  upon 
it  the  startling  apparition  of  a  dark  human 
head — the  shadow  of  his  own.  For  a  moment 
this  simple  and  natural  circumstance  un- 
nerved him.  The  noise  of  his  labored  breath- 
ing frightened  him,  and  he  tried  to  still  it,  but 
his  bursting  lungs  would  not  be  denied. 
Then,  laughing  half  audibly  and  wholly  with- 
out spirit,  he  began  making  movements  of 
his  head  from  side  to  side,  in  order  to  com- 
pel the  apparition  to  repeat  them.  He  found 
a  comforting  reassurance  in  asserting  his  com- 
mand over  his  own  shadow.  He  was  tempo- 
rizing, making,  with  unconscious  prudence,  a 
dilatory  opposition  to  an  impending  catas- 
trophe. He  felt  that  invisible  forces  of  evil 
were  closing  in  upon  him,  and  he  parleyed 
for  time  with  the  Inevitable. 

He  now  observed  in  succession  several  ex- 


A  HOLY  TERROR.  215 

traordinary  circumstances.  The  surface  of 
the  coffin  upon  which  his  eyes  were  fastened 
was  not  flat;  it  presented  two  distinct  ridges, 
one  longitudinal  and  the  other  transverse. 
Where  these  intersected  at  the  widest  part, 
there  was  a  corroded  metallic  plate  that  re- 
flected the  moonlight  with  a  dismal  luster. 
Along  the  outer  edges  of  the  coffin,  at  long 
intervals,  were  rust-eaten  heads  of  nails. 
This  frail  product  of  the  carpenter's  art  had 
been  put  into  the  grave  the  wrong  side  up! 

Perhaps  it  was  one  of  the  humors  of  the 
camp — a  practical  manifestation  of  the  face- 
tious spirit  that  had  found  literary  expression 
in  the  topsy-turvy  obituary  notice  from  the 
pen  of  Hurefy-Gurdy's  great  humorist.  Per- 
haps it  had  some  occult  personal  signification 
impenetrable  to  understandings  uninstructed 
in  local  traditions.  A  more  charitable  hy- 
pothesis is  that  it  was  owing  to  a  misadventure 
on  the  part  of  Mr.  Barney  Bree,  who,  making 
the  interment  unassisted,  either  by  choice  for 
the  conservation  of  his  golden  secret,  or 
through  public  a'pathy,  had  committed  a 
blunder  which  he  was  afterward  unable  or 
unconcerned  to  rectify.  However  it  had 
come  about,  poor  Scarry  had  indubitably 
been  put  into  the  earth  face  downward. 


2l6  A  HOLY  TERROR. 

When  terror  and  absurdity  make  alliance, 
the  effect  is  frightful.  This  strong-hearted 
and  daring  man,  this  hardy  night  worker 
among  the  dead,  this  defiant  antagonist  of 
darkness  and  desolation,  succumbed  to  a 
ridiculous  surprise.  He  was  smitten  with  a 
thrilling  chill — shivered,  and  shook  his  mass- 
ive shoulders  as  if  to  throw  off  an  icy  hand. 
He  no  longer  breathed,  and  the  blood  in  his 
veins,  unable  to  abate  its  impetus,  surged 
hotly  beneath  his  cold  skin.  Unleavened 
with  oxygen,  it  mounted  to  his  head  and  con- 
gested his  brain.  His  physical  functions  had 
gone  over  to  the  enemy;  his  very  heart  was 
arrayed  against  him.  He  did  not  move;  he 
could  not  have  cried  out.  He  needed  but  a 
coffin  to  be  dead — as  dead  as  the  death  that 
confronted  him  with  only  the  length  of  an 
open  grave  and  the  thickness  of  a  rotting 
plank  between. 

Then,  one  by  one,  his  senses  returned;  the 
tide  of  terror  that  had  overwhelmed  his  facul- 
ties began  to  recede.  But  with  the  return  of 
his  senses  he  became  singularly  unconscious 
of  the  object  of  his  fear.  He  saw  the  moon- 
light gilding  the  coffin,  but  no  longer  the  cof- 
fin that  it  gilded.  Raising  his  eyes  and  turn- 
ing his  head,  he  noted,  curiously  and  with 


A  HOLY  TERROR,  21 7 

surprise,  the  black  branches  of  the  dead  tree, 
and  tried  to  estimate  the  length  of  the  weather- 
worn rope  that  dangled  from  its  ghostly  hand. 
The  monotonous  barking  of  distant  coyotes 
affected  him  as  something  he  had  heard  years 
ago  in  a  dream.  An  owl  flapped  awkward' y 
above  him  on  noiseless  wing's,  and  he  tried 
to  forecast  the  direction  of  its  flight  when  it 
should  encounter  the  cliff  that  reared  its  illu- 
minated front  a  mile  away.  His  hearing  took 
account  of  a  gopher's  stealthy  tread  in  the 
shadow  of  the  cactus.  He  was  intensely  ob- 
servant; his  senses  were  all  alert;  but  he  saw 
not  the  coffin.  As  one  can  gaze  at  the  sun 
until  it  looks  black  and  then  vanishes,  so 
his  mind,  having  exhausted  its  capacities  of 
dread,  was  no  longer  conscious  of  the  sep- 
arate existence  of  anything  dreadful.  The 
Assassin  was  cloaking  the  sword. 

It  was  during  this  lull  in  the  battle  that  he 
became  sensible  of  a  faint,  sickening  odor. 
At  first  he  thought  it  was  that  of  a  rattlesnake, 
and  involuntarily  tried  to  look  about  his  feet. 
They  were  nearly  invisible  in  the  gloom  of 
the  grave.  A  hoarse,  gurgling  sound,  like 
the  death-rattle  in  a  human  throat,  seemed 
to  come  out  of  the  sky,  and  a  moment  later 
a  great,  black,  angular  shadow,  like  the  same 


2l8  A   HOLY  TERROR. 

sound  made  visible,  dropped  curving  from 
the  topmost  branch  of  the  spectral  tree,  flut- 
tered for  an  instant  before  his  face,  and  sailed 
fiercely  away  into  the  mist  along  the  creek. 
It  was  a  raven.  The  incident  recalled  him  to 
a  sense  of  the  situation,  and  again  his  eyes 
sought  the  upright  cofHn,  now  illuminated  by 
the  moon  for  half  its  length.  He  saw  the 
gleam  of  the  metallic  plate,  and  tried  without 
moving  to  decipher  the  inscription.  Then 
he  fell  to  speculating  upon  what  was  behind 
it.  His  creative  imagination  presented  him  a 
vivid  picture.  The  planks  no  longer  seemed 
an  obstacle  to  his  vision,  and  he  saw  the  livid 
corpse  of  the  dead  woman,  standing  in  grave- 
clothes,  and  staring  vacantly  at  him,  with  lid- 
less,  shrunken  eyes.  The  lower  jaw  was  fallen, 
the  upper  lip  drawn  away  from  the  uncovered 
teeth.  He  could  make  out  a  mottled  pattern 
on  the  hollow  cheeks — the  maculations  of  de- 
cay. By  some  mysterious  process,  his  mind 
reverted  for  the  first  time  that  day  to  the  pho- 
tograph of  Mary  Matthews.  He  contrasted 
its  blonde  beauty  with  the  forbidding  aspect 
of  this  dead  face — the  most  beloved  object 
that  he  knew  with  the  most  hideous  that  he 
could  conceive. 

The  Assassin  now  advanced,  and,  displaying 


A  HOLY  TERROR.  2IQ 

the  blade,  laid  it  against  the  victim's  throat. 
That  is  to  say,  the  man  became  at  first  dimly, 
then  definitely,  aware  of  an  impressive  coinci- 
dence— a  relation — a  parallel,  between  the 
face  on  the  card  and  the  name  on  the  head- 
board. The  one  was  disfigured,  the  other 
described  a  disfiguration.  The  thought  took 
hold  of  him  and  shook  him.  It  transformed 
the  face  that  his  imagination  had  created  be- 
hind the  coffin  lid;  the  contrast  became  a 
resemblance;  the  resemblance  grew  to  iden- 
tity. Remembering  the  many  descriptions  ot 
Scarry's  personal  appearance  that  he  had 
heard  from  the  gossips  of  his  camp  fire,  he 
tried  with  imperfect  success  1o  recall  the  ex- 
act nature  of  the  disfiguration  that  had  given 
the  woman  her  ugly  name;  and  what  was 
lacking  in  his  memory,  fancy  supplied,  stamp- 
ing it  with  the  validity  of  conviction.  In  the 
maddening  attempt  to  recall  such  scraps  of 
the  woman's  history  as  he  had  heard,  the 
muscles  of  his  arms  and  hands  were  strained 
to  a  painful  tension,  as  by  an  effort  to  lift  a 
great  weight.  His  body  writhed  and  twisted 
with  the  exertion.  The  tendons  of  his  neck 
stood  out  as  tense  as  whip  cords,  and  his 
breath  came  in  short,  sharp  gasps.  The  ca- 
tastrophe could  not  be  much  longer  delayed, 


22O  A  HOL  V  TERROR. 

or  the  agony  of  anticipation  would  leave 
nothing  to  be  clone  by  the  coup  de  grace  of 
verification.  The  scarred  face  behind  the 
coffin  lid  would  slay  him  through  the  wood. 

A  movement  of  the  coffin  calmed  him.  It 
came  forward  to  within  a  foot  of  his  face, 
growing  visibly  larger  as  it  approached.  The 
rusted  metallic  plate,  with  an  inscription  illeg- 
ible in  the  moonlight,  looked  him  steadily  in 
the  eye.  Determined  not  to  shrink,  he  tried 
to  brace  his  shoulders  more  firmly  against  the 
end  of  the  excavation,  and  nearly  fell  back- 
ward in  the  attempt.  There  was  nothing  to 
support  him;  he  had  advanced  upon  his 
enemy,  clutching  the  heavy  knife  that  he  had 
drawn  from  his  belt.  The  coffin  had  not 
moved,  and  he  smiled  to  think  it  could  not 
retreat.  Lifting  his  knife,  he  struck  the 
heavy  hilt  against  the  metal  plate  with  all  his 
power.  There  was  a  sharp,  ringing  percus- 
sion, and  with  a  dull  clatter  the  whole  decayed 
coffin  lid  broke  in  pieces  and  came  away,  fall- 
ing about  his  feet.  The  quick  and  the  dead 
were  face  to  face — the  frenzied,  shrieking  man 
—the  woman  standing  tranquil  in  her  silences 
She  was  a  holy  terror! 
v. 

Some   months   later   a  party  of  men   and 


A  FIOLY  TERROR.  221 

women  belonging  to  the  highest  social  circles 
of  San  Francisco  passed  through  Hurdy- 
Gurdy  on  their  way  to  the  Yosemite  Valley 
by  a  new  trail.  They  halted  there  for  dinner, 
and,  pending  its  preparation,  explored  the  des- 
olate camp.  One  of  the  party  had  been  at 
Hurdy-Gurdy  in  the  days  of  its  glory.  He 
had,  indeed,  been  one  of  its  prominent  citi- 
zens; and  it  used  to  be  said  that  more  money 
passed  over  his  faro  table  in  any  one  night 
than  over  those  of  all  his  competitors  in  a 
week;  but  being  now  a  millionaire  engaged 
in  greater  enterprises,  he  did  not  deem  these 
early  successes  of  sufficient  importance  to 
merit  the  distinction  of  remark.  His  invalid 
wife,  a  lady  famous  in  San  Francisco  for  the 
costly  nature  of  her  entertainments  and  her 
exacting  rigor  with  regard  to  the  social  posi- 
tion and  antecedents  of  those  who  attended 
them,  accompanied  the  expedition.  During 
a  stroll  among  the  abandoned  shanties  of  the 
abandoned  camp,  Mr.  Porfer  directed  the  at- 
tention of  his  wife  and  friends  to  a  dead  tree 
on  a  low  hill  beyond  Injun  Creek. 

"As  I  told  you,"  he  said,  "I  passed 
through  this  camp  in  18 — ,  and  was  told  that 
no  fewer  than  five  men  had  been  hanged  here 
by  Vigilantes  at  various  times,  and  all  on  that 


222  A  HOLY  TERROR. 

tree.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  a  rope  is  dan- 
gling from  it  yet.  Let  us  go  over  and  see  the 
place. ' ' 

Mr.  Porfer  did  not  add  that  the  rope  in 
question  was  perhaps  the  very  one  from  whose 
fatal  embrace  his  own  neck  had  once  had  an 
escape  so  narrow  that  an  hour's  delay  in  tak- 
ing himself  out  of  that  region  would  have 
spanned  it. 

Proceeding  leisurely  down  the  creek  to  a 
convenient  crossing,  the  party  came  upon  the 
cleanly-picked  skeleton  of  an  animal,  which 
Mr.  Porfer,  after  due  examination,  pronounced 
to  be  that  of  an  ass.  The  distinguishing  ears 
were  gone,  but  much  of  the  inedible  head  had 
been  spared  by  the  beasts  and  birds,  and  the 
stout  bridle  of  horsehair  was  intact,  as  was  the 
riata,  of  similar  material,  connecting  it  with  a 
picket  pin  still  firmly  sunken  in  the  earth. 
The  wooden  and  metallic  elements  of  a  miner's 
kit  lay  near  by.  The  customary  remarks 
were  made,  cynical  on  the  part  of  the  gentle- 
men, sentimental  and  refined  by  the  lady.  A 
little  later  they  stood  by  the  tree  in  the  ceme- 
tery, and  Mr.  Porfer  sufficiently  unbent  from 
his  dignity  to  place  himself  beneath  the  rotten 
rope  and  confidently  lay  a  coil  of  it  about  his 
neck,  somewhat,  it  appeared,  to  his  own  sat- 
isfaction, but  greatly  to  the  horror  of  his  wife, 


A  HOLY  TERROR.  22$ 

to  whose  sensibilities  the  performance  gave  a 
smart  shock. 

An  exclamation  from  one  of  the  party  gath- 
ered them  all  about  an  open  grave,  at  the 
bottom  of  which  they  saw  a  confused  mass  of 
human  bones,  and  the  broken  remnants  of  a 
coffin.  Wolves  and  buzzards  had  performed 
the  last  sad  rites  for  pretty  much  all  else. 
Two  skulls  were  visible,  and,  in  order  to  in- 
vestigate this  somewhat  unusual  redundancy, 
one  of  the  younger  gentlemen  had  the  hardi- 
hood to  spring  into  the  grave  and  hand  them 
up  to  another  before  Mrs.  Porfer  could  in- 
dicate her  marked  disapproval  of  so  shock- 
ing an  act,  which,  nevertheless,  she  did  with 
considerable  feeling  and  in  very  choice  words. 
Pursuing  his  search  among  the  dismal  debris 
at  the  bottom  of  the  grave,  the  young  gentle- 
man next  handed  up  a  rusted  coffin  plate,  with 
a  rudely-cut  inscription,  which,  with  difficulty, 
Mr.  Porfer  deciphered  and  read  aloud  with  an 
earnest  and  not  altogether  unsuccessiul  attempt 
at  the  dramatic  effect  which  he  deemed  befit- 
ting to  the  occasion  and  his  rhetorical  abilities: 
MANUELITA  MURPHY. 

Born  at  the  Mission  San  Pedro — Died  in 
Hurdy-Gurdy, 

Aged  47. 
Heir  s  full  of  such. 


224  A  HOLY  TERROR. 

In  deference  to  the  piety  of  the  reader  and  the 
nerves  of  Mrs.  Porfer's  fastidious  sisterhood  of 
both  sexes  let  us  not  touch  upon  the  painful  im- 
pression produced  by  this  uncommon  inscrip- 
tion, further  than  to  say  that  the  elocutionary 
powers  of  Mr.  Porfer  had  never  before  met 
with  such  spontaneous  and  overwhelming 
recognition. 

The  next  morsel  that  rewarded  the  ghoul 
in  the  grave  was  a  long  tangle  of  black  hair, 
denied  with  clay;  but  this  was  such  an  anti- 
climax that  it  received  little  attention.  Sud- 
denly, with  a  short  exclamation  and  a  gesture 
of  excitement,  the  young  man  unearthed  a 
fragment  of  grayish  rock,  and  after  a  hurried 
inspection  handed  it  up  to  Mr.  Porfer.  As 
the  sunlight  fell  upon  it,  it  glittered  with  a 
yellow  luster — it  was  thickly  studded  with 
gleaming  points.  Mr.  Porfer  snatched  it, 
bent  his  head  over  it  a  moment,  and  threw 
it  lightly  away,  with  the  simple  remark: — 

"Iron  pyrites — fool's  gold." 

The  young  man  in  the  discovery  shaft  was 
a  trifle  disconcerted,  apparently. 

Meanwhile  Mrs.  Porfer,  unable  longer  to 
endure  the 'disagreeable  business,  had  walked 
back  to  the  tree  and  seated  herself  at  its  root. 
While  rearranging  a  tress  of  golden  hair,  which 


A  HOLY  TERROR.  22$ 

had  slipped  from  its  confinement,  she  was  at- 
tracted by  what  appeared  to  be,  and  really 
was,  the  fragment  of  an  old  coat.  Looking 
about  to  assure  herself  that  so  unladylike  an 
act  was  not  observed,  she  thrust,  her  jeweled 
hand  into  the  exposed  pocket,  and  drew  out 
a  moldy  pocket-book.  Its  contents  were  as 
follows: — 

One  bundle  of  letters,  postmarked  Eliza- 
bethtown,  New  Jersey. 

One  circle  of  blonde  hair  tied  with  a  ribbon. 

One  photograph  of  a  beautiful  girl. 

One  ditto  of  same,  singularly  disfigured. 

One  name  on  back  of  photograph — "  Jeft- 
erson  Doman." 

A  few  moments  later  a  group  of  anxious 
gentlemen  surrounded  Mrs.  Porfer  as  she  sat 
motionless  at  the  foot  of  the  tree,  her  head 
dropped  forward,  her  fingers  clutching  a 
crushed  photograph.  Her  husband  raised 
her  head,  exposing  a  face  ghastly  white,  ex- 
cept the  long,  deforming  cicatrice,  familiar  to 
all  her  friends,  which  no  art  could  ever  hide, 
and  which  now  traversed  the  pallor  of*  her 
countenance  like  a  visible  curse. 

Mary  Matthews  Porfer  had  the  bad  luck  to 
be  dead. 


THE  SUITABLE   SURROUNDINGS. 

THE  NIGHT. 

NE  midsummer  night  a  farmer's  boy  liv- 
ing about  ten  miles  from  the  city  of  Cin- 
cinnati, was  following  a  bridle  path  through 
a  dense  and  dark  forest.  He  had  been  search- 
ing for  some  missing  cows,  and  at  nightfall 
found  himself  a  long  way  from  home,  and  in 
a  part  of  the  country  with  which  he  was  but 
partly  familiar.  But  he  was  a  stout-hearted 
lad,  and,  knowing  his  general  direction  from 
his  home,  he  plunged  into  the  forest  without 
hesitation,  guided  by  the  stars.  Coming  into 
the  bridle  path,  and  observing  that  it  ran  in 
the  right  direction,  he  followed  it. 

The  night  was  clear,  but  in  the  woods  it 
was  exceedingly  dark.  It  was  more  by  the 
sense  of  touch  than  by  that  of  sight  that  the 
lad  kept  the  path.  He  could  not,  indeed, 
very  easily  go  astray;  the  undergrowth  on 
both  sides  was  so  thick  as  to  be  almost  im- 
penetrable. He  had  gone  into  the  forest  a  mile 
or  more  when  he  was  surprised  to  see  a  fee- 

(227) 


228  THE  SUITABLE  SURROUND1XGS. 

ble  gleam  of  light  shining  through  the  foliage 
skirting  the  path  on  his  left.  The  sight  of  it 
startled  him,  and  set  his  heart  beating  audi- 
bly. 

"The  old  Breede  house  is  somewhere 
about  here,"  he  said  to  himself.  "This  must 
be  the  other  end  of  the  path  which  we  reach 
it  by  from  our  side.  Ugh !  what  should  a  light 
be  doing  there?  I  don't  like  it." 

Nevertheless,  he  pushed  on.  A  moment 
later  and  he  had  emerged  from  the  forest  into 
a  small,  open  space,  mostly  upgrown  to  bram- 
bles. There  were  remnants  of  a  rotting 
fence.  A  few  yards  from  the  trail,  in  the 
middle  of  the  clearing,  was  the  house,  from 
which  the  light  came  through  an  unglazed 
window.  The  window  had  once  contained 
glass,  but  that  and  its  supporting  frame  had 
long  ago  yielded  to  missiles  flung  by  hands 
of  venturesome  boys,  to  attest  alike  their 
courage  and  their  hostility  to  the  supernatu- 
ral; for  the  Breede  house  bore  the  evil  repu- 
tation of  being  haunted.  Possibly  it  was  not, 
but  even  the  hardiest  skeptic  could  not  deny 
that  it  was  deserted — which,  in  rural  regions, 
is  much  the  same  thing. 

Looking  at  the  mysterious  dim  light  shin- 
ing from  the  ruined  window,  the  boy  remem- 


THE  S I V TA KL E  SURRO UNDINGS.  2 2Q 

bered  with  apprehension  that  his  own  hand 
had  assisted  at  the  destruction.  His  penitence 
was,  of  course,  poignant  in  proportion  to  its 
tardiness  and  inefficacy.  He  half  expected 
to  be  set  upon  by  all  the  unworldly  and  bodi- 
less malevolences  whom  he  had  outraged  by 
assisting  to  break  alike  their  windows  and 
their  peace.  Yet  this  stubborn  lad,  shaking 
in  every  limb,  would  not  retreat.  The  blood 
in  his  veins  was  strong  and  rich  with  the  iron 
of  the  frontiersman.  He  was  but  two  removes 
from  the  generation  which  had  subdued  the 
Indian.  He  started  to  pass  the  house. 

As  he  was  going  by,  he  looked  in  at  the 
blank  window  space,  and  saw  a  strange  and 
terrifying  sight, — the  figure  of  a  man  seated 
in  the  center  of  the  room,  at  a  table  upon 
which  lay  some  loose  sheets  of  paper.  The 
elbows  rested  on  the  table,  the  hands  sup- 
porting the  head,  which  was  uncovered.  On 
each  side  the  fingers  were  pushed  into  the 
hair.  The  face  showed  pale  in  the  light  of 
a  single  candle  a  little  to  one  side.  The 
flame  illuminated  that  side  of  the  face,  the 
other  was  in  d.ep  shadow.  The  man's  eyes 
were  fixed  upon  the  blank  window  space  w'th 
a  stare  in  which  an  older  and  cooler  observer 
might  have  discerned  something  of  apprehen- 


230  THE  SUITABLE  SURROUNDINGS. 

sion,  but  which  seemed  to  the  lad  altogether 
soulless.     He  believed  the  man  to  be  dead. 

The  situation  was  horrible,  but  not  without 
its  fascination.  The  boy  paused  in  his  flight 
to  note  it  all.  He  endeavored  to  still  the 
beating  of  his  heart  by  holding  his  breath  un- 
til half  suffocated.  He  was  weak,  faint,  trem- 
bling; he  could  feel  the  deathly  whiteness  of 
his  face.  Nevertheless,  he  set  his  teeth  and 
resolutely  advanced  to  the  house.  He  had 
no  conscious  intention, — it  was  the  mere 
courage  of  terror.  He  thrust  his  white  face 
forward  into  the  illuminated  opening.  At 
that  instant  a  strange,  harsh  cry,  a  shriek, 
broke  upon  the  silence  of  the  night, — the 
note  of  a  screech  owl.  The  man  sprang  to 
his  feet,  overturning  the  table  and  extinguish- 
ing the  candle.  The  boy  took  to  his  heels. 

THE  DAY  BEFORE. 

"Good-morning,  Colston.  I  am  in  luck,  it 
seems.  You  have  often  said  that  my  com- 
mendation of  your  literary  work  was  mere 
civility,  and  here  you  find  me  absorbed  — actu- 
ally merged — in  your  latest  story  in  the  Mes- 
senger. Nothing  less  shocking  than  your 
touch  upon  my  shoulder  would  have  roused 
me  to  consciousness." 


THE  Sl'ITAKLE  SURROUNDINGS.  23! 

' '  The  proof  is  stronger  than  you  seem  to 
know, ' '  replied  the  man  addressed ;  "so  keen 
is  your  eagerness  to  read  my  story  that  you 
are  willing  to  renounce  selfish  considerations 
and  forego  all  the  pleasure  that  you  could  get 
from  it." 

"I  don't  understand  you,"  said  the  other, 
folding  the  newspaper  that  he  held,  and  put- 
ting it  in  his  pocket.  ' f  You  writers  are  a  queer 
lot,  anyhow.  Come,  tell  me  what  I  have  done 
or  omitted  in  this  matter.  In  what  way  does 
the  pleasure  that  I  get,  or  might  get,  from  your 
work  depend  on  me  ? ' ' 

' '  In  many  ways.  Let  me  ask  you  how  you 
would  enjoy  your  dinner  if  you  took  it  in  this 
street  car.  Suppose  the  phonograph  so  per- 
fected as  to  be  able  to  give  you  an  entire 
opera, — singing,  orchestration,  and  all;  do 
you  think  you  would  get  much  pleasure  out 
of  it  if  you-  turned  it  on  at  your  office  during 
business  hours?  Do  you  really  care  for  a 
serenade  by  Shubert  when  you  hear  it  fiddled 
by  an  untimely  Italian  on  a  morning  ferry- 
boat? Are  you  always  cocked  and  primed 
for  admiration?  Do  you  keep  every  mood 
on  tap,  ready  to  any  demand?  Let  me  re- 
mind you,  sir,  that  the  story  which  you  have 
done  me  the  honor  to  begin  as  a  means  of 


232  THE  SUITABLE  SURROUNDINGS. 

becoming  oblivious  to  the  discomfort  of  this 
street  car  is  a  ghost  story  ! ' ' 

"Well?" 

"Well!  Has  the  reader  no  duties  corre- 
sponding to  his  privileges?  You  have  paid  live 
cents  for  that  newspaper.  It  is  yours.  You 
have  the  right  to  read  it  when  and  where  you 
will.  Much  of  what  is  in  it  is  neither  helped 
nor  harmed  by  time,  and  place,  and  mood ; 
some  of  it  actually  requires  to  be  read  at 
once — while  it  is  fizzing.  But  my  story  is 
not  of  that  character.  It  is  not  the  'very 
latest  advices '  from  Ghost  Land.  You  are  not 
expected  to  keep  yourself  au  courant  with 
what  is  going  on  in  the  realm  of  spooks. 
The  stuff  will  keep  until  you  have  leisure  to 
put  yourself  into  the  frame  of  mind  appro- 
priate to  the  sentiment  of  the  piece — which  I 
respectfully  submit  that  you  cannot  do  in  a 
street  car,  even  if  you  are  the  only  passenger. 
The  solitude  is  not  of  the  right  sort.  An  au- 
thor has  rights  which  the  reader  is  bound 
to  respect. ' ' 

"  For  specific  example?  " 

' '  The  right  to  the  reader's  undivided  atten- 
tion. To  deny  him  this  is  immoral.  To 
make  him  share  your  attention  with  the  rattle 
of  a  street  car,  the  moving  panorama  of  the 


THE  SUITABLE  SURROUNDINGS.  233 

crowds  on  the  sidewalks,  and  the  buildings 
beyond — with  any  of  the  thousands  of  dis- 
tractions which  make  our  customary  environ- 
ment— is  to  treat  him  with  gross  injustice. 
By  God,  it  is  infamous  ! ' ' 

The  speaker  had  risen  to  his  feet,  and  was 
steadying  himself  by  one  of  the  straps  hang- 
ing from  the  roof  of  the  car.  The  other  man 
looked  up  at  him  in  sudden  astonishment, 
wondering  how  so  trivial  a  grievance  could 
seem  to  justify  so  strong  language.  He  saw 
that  his  friend's  face  was  uncommonly  pale, 
and  that  his  eyes  glowed  like  living  coals. 

"  You  know  what  I  mean,"  continued  the 
writer,  impetuously,  crowding  his  words — 
"You  know  what  I  mean,  Marsh.  My  stuff 
in  this  morning's  Messenger  is  plainly  sub- 
headed  'A  Ghost  Story.'  That  is  ample  no- 
tice to  all.  Every  honorable  reader  will  un- 
derstand it  as  prescribing  by  implication  the 
conditions  under  which  the  work  is  to  be 
read." 

The  man  addressed  as  Marsh  winced  a  tri- 
fle, then  asked  with  a  smile:  "What  condi- 
tions? You  know  that  I  am  only  a  plain 
business  man,  who  cannot  be  supposed  to  un 
clerstand  such  things.  How,  when,  where 
should  I  read  your  ghost  story?" 


234  THE  SUITABLE  SURROUNDINGS. 

"In  solitude — at  night — by  the  light  of  a 
candle.  There  are  certain  emotions  which  a 
writer  can  easily  enough  excite — such  as 
compassion  or  merriment.  I  can  move  you 
to  tears  or  laughter  under  almost  any  circum- 
stances. But  for  my  ghost  story  to  be  effect- 
ive you  must  be  made  to  feel  fear — at  least 
a  strong  sense  of  the  supernatural — and  that  is 
a  different  matter.  I  have  a  right  to  expect 
that  if  you  read  me  at  all  you  will  give  me  a 
chance;  that  you  will  make  yourself  accessi- 
ble to  the  emotion  which  I  try  to  inspire." 

The  car  had  now  arrived  at  its  terminus 
and  stopped.  The  trip  just  completed  was  its 
first  for  the  day,  and  the  conversation  of  the 
two  early  passengers  had  not  been  inter- 
rupted. The  streets  were  yet  silent  and 
desolate;,  the  house  tops  were  just  touched 
by  the  rising  sun.  As  they  stepped  from  the 
car  and  walked  away  together  Marsh  narrowly 
eyed  his  companion,  who  was  reported,  like 
most  men  of  uncommon  literary  ability,  to  be 
addicted  to  various  destructive  vices.  That 
is  the  revenge  which  dull  minds  take  upon 
bright  ones  in  resentment  of  their  superiority. 
Mr.  Colston  was  known  as  a  man  of  genius. 
There  are  honest  souls  who  believe  that 
genius  is  a  mode  of  excess.  It  was  known 


THE  SUITABLE  SURROUNDINGS. 


235 


that  Colston  did  not  drink  liquor,  but  many 
said  that  he  ate  opium.  Something"  in  his 
appearance  that  morning — a  certain  wildness 
of  the  eyes,  an  unusual  pallor,  a  thickness 
and  rapidity  of  speech — were,  taken  by  Mr. 
Marsh  to  confirm  the  report.  Nevertheless, 
he  had  not  the  self-denial  to  abandon  a  sub- 
ject which  he  found  interesting,  however  it 
might  excite  his  friend. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say,"  he  began,  "that 
if  I  take  the  trouble  to  observe  your  direc- 
tions— place  myself  in  the  condition  which 
you  demand:  solitude,  night  and  a  tallow  can- 
dle— you  can  with  your  ghastliest  work  give 
me  an  uncomfortable  sense  of  the  super- 
natural, as  you  call  it?  Can  you  accelerate 
my  pulse,  make  me  start  at  sudden  noises, 
send,  a  nervous  chill  along  my  spine,  and 
cause  my  hair  to  rise?  " 

Colston  turned  suddenly  and  looked  him 
squarely  in  the  eyes  as  they  walked.  ' '  You 
would  not  dare — you  have  not  the  courage," 
he  said.  He  emphasized  the  words  with  a 
contemptuous  gesture.  "You  are  brave 
enough  to  read  me  in  a  street  car,  but — in  a 
deserted  house  —  alone — in  the  forest  —  at 
night !  Bah !  I  have  a  manuscript  in  my 
pocket  that  would  kill  you." 


236  THE  SUITABLE  SURROUNDINGS 

Marsh  was  angry.  He  knew  himself  a 
man  of  courage,  and  the  words  stung  him. 
"If  you  know  such  a  place, ' '  he  said,  ' '  take 
me  there  to-night  and  leave  me  your  story 
and  a  candle.  Call  for  me  when  I've  had 
time  enough  to  read  it,  and  I'll  tell  you  the 
entire  plot  and — kick  you  out  of  the  place." 

That  is  how  it  occurred  that  the  farmer's 
boy,  looking  in  at  an  unglazed  window  of  the 
Breede  house,  saw  a  man  sitting  in  the  light 
of  a  candle. 

THE    DAY    AFTER. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day  three 
men  and  a  boy  approached  the  Breede  house 
from  that  point  of  the  compass  toward  which 
the  boy  had  fled  the  preceding  night.  They 
were  in  high  spirits  apparently;  they  talked 
loudly  and  laughed  They  made  facetious  and 
good-humored  ironical  remarks  to  the  boy 
about  his  adventure,  which  evidently  they 
did  not  believe  in.  The  boy  accepted  their 
raillery  with  seriousness,  making  no  reply. 
He  had  a  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things,  and 
knew  that  one  who  professes  to  have  seen  a 
dead  man  rise  from  his  seat  and  blow  out  a 
candle  is  not  a  credible  witness. 

Arrived  at  the  house,  and  finding  the  door 
bolted  on  the  inside,  the  party  of  investigators 


237 

entered  without  further  ceremony  than  break- 
ing it  down.  Leading  out  of  the  passage  into 
which  this  door  had  opened  was  another 
on  the  right  and  one  on  the  left.  These  two 
doors  also  were  fastened,  and  were  broken  in. 
They  entered  at  random  the  one  on  the  left 
first.  It  was  vacant.  In  the  room  on  the 
right — the  one  which  had  the  blank  front 
window — was  the  dead  body  of  a  man. 

It  lay  partly  on  one  side,  with  the  forearm 
beneath  it,  the  cheek  on  the  floor.  The  eyes 
were  wide  open;  the  stare  was  not  an  agreea- 
ble thing  to  encounter.  The  lower  jaw  had 
fallen ;  a  little  pool  of  saliva  had  collected  be- 
neath the  mouth.  An  overthrown  table,  a 
partly-burned  candle,  a  chair,  and  some  pa- 
per with  writing  on  it,  were  all  else  that  the 
room  contained.  The  men  looked  at  the 
body,  touching  the  face  in  turn.  The  boy 
gravely  stood  at  the  head,  assuming  a  look 
of  ownership.  It  was  the  proudest  moment 
of  his  life.  One  of  the  men  said  to  him, 
"You're  a  good  'un" — a  remark  which  was 
received  by  the  two  others  with  nods  of  ac- 
quiescence. It  was  Skepticism  apologizing 
to  Truth.  Then  one  of  the  men  took  from 
the  floor  the  sheets  of  manuscript  and  stepped 
to  the  window,  for  already  the  evening 


238  THE  SUITABLE  SURROUNDINGS. 

shadows  were  glooming  the  forest.  The 
song  of  the  whip-poor-will  was  heard  in  the 
distance,  and  a  monstrous  beetle  sped  by  the 
window  on  roaring  wings,  and  thundered 
away  out  of  hearing. 

THE    MANUSCRIPT. 

' '  Before  committing  the  act  which,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  I  have  resolved  on,  and  appear- 
ing before  my  Maker  for  judgment,  I,  James 
R.  Colston,  deem  it  my  duty  as  a  journalist  to 
make  a  statement  to  the  public.  My  name 
is,  I  believe,  tolerably  well  known  to  the  peo- 
ple as  a  writer  of  tragic  tales,  but  the  somber- 
est  imagination  never  conceived  anything  so 
gloomy  as  my  own  life  and  history.  Not  in 
incident:  my  life  has  been  destitute  of  ad- 
venture and  action.  But  my  mental  career 
has  been  lurid  with  experiences  such  as  kill 
and  damn.  I  shall  not  recount  them  here — 
some  of  them  are  written  and  ready  for  publi. 
cation  elsewhere.  The  object  of  these  lines  is 
to  explain  to  whomsoever  may  be  interested 
that  my  death  is  voluntary — my  own  act.  I 
shall  die  at  twelve  o'clock  on  the  night  of  the 
i'5th  of  July — a  significant  anniversary  to 
me,  for  it  was  on  that  day,  and  at  that  hour, 
that  my  friend  in  time  and  eternity,  Charles 


THE  SUITABLE  SURROUNDINGS. 


239 


Breede,  performed  his  vow  to  me  by  the 
same  act  which  his  fidelity  to  our  pledge  now 
entails  upon  me.  He  took  his  life  in  his  lit- 
tle house  in  the  Copeton  woods.  There  was 
the  customary  verdict  of  '  temporary  insanity.' 
Had  I  testified  at  that  inquest — had  I  told  all 
I  knew,  they  would  have  called  me  mad  ! 

' '  I  have  still  a  week  of  life  in  which  to  ar- 
range my  worldly  affairs,  and  prepare  for  the 
great  change.  It  is  enough,  for  I  have  but  few 
affairs,  and  it  is  now  four  years  since  death 
became  an  imperative  obligation. 

"  I  shall  bear  this  writing  on  my  body ;  the 
finder  will  please  hand  it  to  the  coroner. 

"JAMES  R.  COLSTON. 

"P.  S. — Willard  Marsh,  on  this  the  fatal 
fifteenth  day  of  July,  I  hand  you  this  manu- 
script, to  be  opened  and  read  under  the  condi- 
tions agreed  upon,  and  at  the  place  which  I 
designate.  I  forego  my  intention  to  keep  it  on 
my  body  to  explain  the  manner  of  my  death, 
which  is  not  important.  It  will  serve  to  ex- 
plain the  manner  of  yours.  I  am  to  call  for 
you  during  the  night  to  receive  assurance 
that  you  have  read  the  manuscript.  You 
know  me  well  enough  to  expect  me.  But, 
my  friend,  it  will  be  after  twelve  o'clock.  May 
God  have  mercy  on  our  souls  ! ' ' 

"].    R.    C." 


240 

Before  the  man  who  w;  s  reading  this  manu- 
script had  finished,  the  candle  had  been 
picked  up  and  lighted.  When  the  reader 
had  done,  he  quietly  thrust  the  paper  against 
the  flame,  and  despite  the  prostestations  of 
the  others  held  it  until  it  was  burnt  to  ashes. 
The  man  who  did  this,  and  who  placidly  en- 
dured a  severe  reprimand  from  the  coroner, 
was  a  son-in-law  of  the  late  Charles  Breede. 
At  the  inquest  nothing  could  elicit  an  intelli- 
gible account  of  what  the  paper  contained. 
FROM  THE  "TIMES." 

"Yesterday  the  Commissioners  of  Lunacy 
committed  to  the  asylum  Mr.  James  R.  Col- 
ston, a  writer  of  some  local  reputation,  con- 
nected with  the  Messenger.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  on  the  evening  of  the  I5th  inst. 
Mr.  Colston  was  given  into  custody  by  one  of 
his  fellow-lodgers  in  the  Baine  House,  who 
had  observed  him  acting  very  suspiciously, 
baring  his  throat  and  whetting  a  razor — oc- 
casionally trying  its  edge  by  actually  cutting 
through  the  skin  of  his  arm,  etc.  On  being 
handed  over  to  the  police,  the  unfortunate 
man  made  a  desperate  resistance  and  has 
ever  since  been  so  violent  that  it  has  been 
necessary  to  keep  him  in  a  strait-jacket. 
Most  of  our  esteemed  contemporary's  other 
writers  are  still  at  large. 


AN  INHABITANT  OF  CARCOSA. 

For  there  be  divers  sorts  of  death — some  wherein 
the  body  remaineth;  and  in  some  it  vanisheth 
quite  away  with  the  spirit.  This  commonly  oc- 
cureth  only  in  solitude  (such  is  God's  will)  and, 
none  seeing  the  end,  we  say  the  man  is  lost,  or 

§one  on  a  long  journey — which  indeed  he  hath; 
ut  sometimes  it  hath  happened  in  sight  of  many, 
as  abundant  testimony  showeth.  In  one  kind  of 
death  the  spirit  also  dieth,  and  this  it  hath  been 
known  to  do  while  yet  the  body  was  in  vigor  for 
many  years.  Sometimes,  as  is  veritably  attested, 
it  dieth  with  the  body,  but  after  a  season  it  is  raised 
up  again  in  that  place  that  the  body  did  decay. 

"DONDERING  these  words  of  Hali  (whom 
God  rest)  and  questioning-  their  full  mean- 
ing, as  one  who,  having  an  intimation  yet 
doubts  if  there  be  not  something  behind  other 
than  that  which  he  has  discerned,  I  noted 
not  whither  I  had  strayed  until  a  sudden 
chill  wind  striking  my  face  revived  in  me  a 
sense  of  my  surroundings.  I  observed  with 
astonishment  that  everything  seemed  unfamil- 
iar. On  every  side  of  me  stretched  a  bleak 
and  desolate  expanse  of  plain,  covered  with  a 
tall  overgrowth  of  sear  grass,  which  rustled 
and  whistled  in  the  autumn  wind  with  heaven 
16  (241) 


242  AN  INHABITANT  QF  CARCOSA. 

knows  what  mysterious  and  disquieting  sug- 
gestion. Protruded  at  long  intervals  above 
it,  stood  strangely-shaped  and  somber-colored 
rocks,  which  seemed  to  have  an  understand- 
ing with  one  another  and  to  exchange  looks 
of  uncomfortable  significance,  as  if  they  had 
reared  their  heads  to  watch  the  issue  of 'some 
foreseen  event.  A  few  blasted  trees  here  and 
there  appeared  as  leaders  in  this  malevolent 
conspiracy  of  silent  expectation.  The  day,  I 
thought,  must  be  far  advanced,  though  the 
sun  was  invisible;  and  although  sensible  that 
the  air  was  raw  and  chill,  my  consciousness 
of  that  fact  was  rather  mental  than  physical — 
I  had  no  feeling  of  discomfort.  Over  all  the 
dismal  landscape  a  canopy  of  low,  lead- 
colored  clouds  hung  like  a  visible  curse.  In 
everything  there  were  a  menace  and  a  portent 
— a  hint  of  crime,  an  intimation  of  doom. 
Bird,  beast,  or  insect  there  was  none.  The 
wind  sighed  in  the  bare  branches  of  the  dead 
trees  and  the  gray  grass  bent  to  whisper  its 
dread  secret  to  the  earth;  but  no  other  sound 
or  motion  broke  the  awful  repose  of  that  dis- 
mal place. 

I  observed  in  the  herbage  a  number  of 
weather-worn  stones,  evidently  shaped  with 
tools.  They  were  broken,  covered  with 


AN  INHABITANT  OF  CARCOSA.  243 

moss  and  half  sunken  in  the  earth.  Some 
lay  prostrate,  some  leaned  at  various  angles, 
none  were  vertical.  They  were  obviously 
headstones  of  graves,  though  the  graves  them- 
selves no  longer  existed  as  either  mounds  or 
depressions;  the  years  had  leveled  all.  Scat- 
tered here  and  there,  more  massive  blocks 
showed  where  some  pompous  tomb  or  ambi- 
tious monument  had  once  flung  its  feeble  de- 
fiance at  oblivion.  So  old  seemed  these  relics, 
these  vestiges  of  vanity  and  memorials  of  af- 
fection and  piety — so  battered  and  worn  and 
stained,  so  neglected,  deserted,  forgotten  the 
place,  that  I  could  not  help  thinking  myself 
the  discoverer  of  the  burial-ground  of  a  pre- 
historic race  of  men — a  nation  whose  very 
name  was  long  extinct. 

Filled  with  these  reflections,  I  was  for  some 
time  heedless  of  the  sequence  of  my  own  ex- 
periences, but  soon  I  thought,  "How  came  I 
hither?"  A  moment's  reflection  seemed  to 
make  this  all  clear,  and  explain  at  the  same 
time,  though  in  a  disquieting  way,  the  singu- 
larly weird  character  with  which  my  fancy 
had  invested  all  that  I  saw  and  heard.  I  was 
ill.  I  remembered  now  how  I  had  been  pros- 
trated by  a  sudden  fever,  and  how  my  family 
had  told  me  that  in  my  periods  of  delirium  I 


244          AX  INHABITANT  OF  CARCOSA. 

had  constantly  cried  out  for  liberty  and  air, 
and  had  been  held  in  bed  to  prevent  my  es- 
cape out-of-doors.  Now  I  had  eluded  the 
vigilance  of  my  attendants,  and  had  wandered 
hither  to — to  where?  I  could  not  conjecture. 
Clearly  I  was  at  a  considerable  distance  from 
the  city  where  I  dwelt — the  ancient  and  fa- 
mous city  of  Carcosa.  No  signs  of  human 
life  were  anywhere  visible  or  audible;  no  ris- 
ing smoke,  no  watchdog's  bark,  no  lowing 
of  cattle,  no  shouts  of  children  at  play — noth- 
ing but  this  dismal  burial-place,  with  its  air  of 
mystery  and  dread,  due  to  my  own  disor- 
dered brain.  Was  I  not  becoming  again  delir- 
ious, there,  beyond  human  aid  ?  Was  it  not 
indeed  all  an  illusion  of  my  madness?  I 
called  aloud  the  names  of  my  wife  and  sons, 
reached  out  my  hands  in  search  of  theirs,  even 
as  I  walked  among  the  crumbling  stones  and 
in  the  withered  grass. 

A  noise  behind  me  caused  me  to  turn 
about.  A  wild  animal — a  lynx — was  ap- 
proaching. The  thought  came  to  me:  If  I 
break  down  here  in  the  desert — if  the  fever 
returns  and  I  fail,  this  beast  will  be  at  my 
throat.  I  sprang  toward  it,  shouting.  It 
trotted  tranquilly  by,  within  a  hand's  breadth 
of  me,  and  disappeared  behind  a  rock.  A 


AN  INHABITANT  OF  CARCOSA.  245 

moment  later  a  man's  head  appeared  to  rise 
out  of  the  gro'und  a  short  distance  away.  He 
was  ascending  the  far  slope  of  a  low  hill  whose 
crest  was  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
general  level.  His  whole  figure  soon  came 
into  view  against  the  background  of  gray 
cloud.  He  was  half  naked,  half  clad  in  skins. 
His  hair  was  unkempt,  his  beard  long  and 
ragged.  In  one  hand  he  carried  a  bow  and 
arrow;  the  other  held  a  blazing  torch  with  a 
long  trail  of  black  smoke.  He  walked  slowly 
and  with  caution,  as  if  he  feared  falling  into 
some  open  grave  concealed  by  the  tall  grass. 
This  strange  apparition  surprised  but  did  not 
alarm,  and,  taking  such  a  course  as  to  inter- 
cept him,  I  met  him  almost  face  to  face,  ac- 
costing him  with  the  salutation,  "God  keep 
you!" 

He  gave  no  heed,  nor  did  he  arrest  his  pace. 

''Good  stranger,"  I  continued,  "I  am  ill 
and  lost.  Direct  me,  I  beseech  you,  to  Car- 
cosa?" 

The  man  broke  into  a  barbarous  chant  in 
an  unknown  tongue,  passing  on  and  away. 
An  owl  on  the  branch  of  a  decayed  tree 
hooted  dismally,  and  was  answered  by  another 
in  the  distance.  Looking  upward  I  saw, 
through  a  sudden  rift  in  the  clouds,  Aide- 


246  AN  INHABITANT  OF  CARCOSA. 

baran  and  the  Hyades!  In  all  this  there  was 
a  hint  of  night — the  lynx,  the  man  with  a 
torch,  the  owl.  Yet  I  saw — I  saw  even  the 
stars  in  absence  of  the  darkness.  I  saw,  but 
was  apparently  not  seen  nor  heard.  Under 
what  awful  spell  did  I  exist? 

I  seated  myself  at  the  root  of  a  great  tree, 
seriously  to  consider  what  it  was  best  to  do. 
That  I  was  mad  I  could  no  longer  doubt,  yet 
recognized  a  ground  of  doubt  in  the  convic- 
tion. Of  fever  I  had  no  trace.  I  had,  withal, 
a  sense  of  exhilaration  and  vigor  altogether 
unknown  to  me — a  feeling  ofmental  and  phys- 
ical exaltation.  My  senses  seemed  all  alert; 
I  could  feel  the  air  as  a  ponderous  substance, 
I  could  hear  the  silence. 

A  great  root  of  the  giant  tree  against  whose 
trunk  I  leaned  as  I  sat,  held  inclosed  in  its 
grasp  a  slab  of  granite,  a  portion  of  which 
protruded  into  a  recess  formed  by  another 
root.  The  stone  was  thus  partly  protected 
from  the  weather,  though  greatly  decomposed. 
Its  edges  were  worn  round,  its  corners  eaten 
away,  its  face  deeply  furrowed  and  scaled. 
Glittering  particles  of  mica  were  visible  in  the 
earth  beneath  it— vestiges  of  its  decomposition. 
This  stone  had  apparently  marked  the  grave 
out  of  which  the  tree  had  sprung  ages  ago. 


A  N  IX HA  BI TA  NT  OF  CARCOSA .  247 

The  tree's  exacting  roots  had  robbed  the 
grave  and  made  the  stone  a  prisoner. 

A  sudden  wind  pushed  some  dry  leaves  and 
twigs  from  the  uppermost  face  of  the  stone;  I 
saw  the  low-relief  letters  of  an  inscription  and 
bent  to  read  it.  God  in  heaven!  my  name  in 
full! — the  date  of  my  birth! — the  date  of  my 
death ! 

A  level  shaft  of  rosy  light  illuminated  the 
whole  side  of  the  tree  as  I  sprang  to  my  feet 
in  terror.  The  sun  was  rising  in  the  east.  I 
stood  between  the  tree  and  his  broad  red  disk 
— no  shadow  darkened  the  trunk!  A  chorus 
of  howling  wolves  saluted  the  dawn.  I  saw 
them  sitting  on  their  haunches,  singly  and  in 
groups,  on  the  summits  of  irregular  mounds 
and  tumuli,  filling  a  half  of  my  desert  pros- 
pect and  extending  to  the  horizon;  and  then 
I  knew  that  these  were  the  ruins  of  the  an- 
cient and  famous  city  of  Carcosa. 


Such  are  the  facts  imparted  to  the  medium 
Bayrolles  by  the  spirit  Hoseib  Alar  Robardin. 


THE  BOARDED  WINDOW. 

TN  1830,  only  a  few  miles  back  from  what  is 
now  the  great  city  of  Cincinnati,  lay  an 
immense  and  almost  unbroken  forest.  The 
whole  region  was  sparsely  settled  by  people 
of  the  frontier — restless  souls  who  no  sooner 
had  hewn  fairly  comfortable  homes  out  of  the 
wilderness  and  attained  to  that  degree  of  pros- 
perity which  to-day  we  should  call  indigence 
than,  impelled  by  some  myst  erious  impulse 
of  their  nature,  they  abandoned  all  and  pushed 
further  westward,  to  encounter  new  perils  and 
privations  in  the  effort  to  regain  comforts 
which  they  had  voluntarily  renounced.  Many 
of  them  had  already  forsaken  that  region  for 
the  remoter  settlements,  but  among  those  re- 
maining was  one  who  had  been  of  those  first 
arriving.  He  lived  alone  in  a  house  of  logs, 
surrounded  on  all  sides  by  the  great  forest,  of 
whose  gloom  and  silence  he  seemed  a  part, 
for  no  one  had  ever  known  him  to  smile  nor 
speak  a  needless  word.  His  simple  wants 
were  supplied  by  the  sale  or  barter  of  skins  of 

(249) 


250  THE  ROAKni-'.n  u' ix  now. 

wild  animals  in  the  river  town,  for  not  a  thing 
did  he  grow  upon  the  land  which  he  might, 
if  needful,  have  claimed  by  right  of  undis- 
turbed possession.  There  were  evidences  of 
"improvement" — a  few  acres  of  ground  im- 
mediately about  the  house  had  once  been 
cleared  of  its  trees,  the  decayed  stumps  of 
which  were  half  concealed  by  the  new  growth 
that  had  been  suffered  to  repair  the  ravage 
wrought  by  the  ax  at  some  distant  day.  Ap- 
parently the  man's  zeal  for  agriculture  had 
burned  with  a  failing  flame,  expiring  in  peni- 
tential ashes. 

The  little  log  house,  with  its  chimney  of 
sticks,  its  roof  of  warping  clapboards  weighted 
with  traversing  poles  and  its  "chinking"  of 
clay,  had  a  single  door,  and,  directly  opposite, 
a  window.  The  latter,  however,  was  boarded 
up — nobody  could  remember  a  time  when  it 
was  not.  And  none  knew  why  it  was  so 
closed;  certainly  not  because  of  the  occu- 
pant's dislike  of  light  and  air,  for  on  those 
rare  occasions  when  a  hunter  had  passed  that 
lonely  spot,  the  recluse  had  commonly  been 
seen  sunning  himself  on  his  doorstep  if  heaven 
had  provided  sunshine  for  his  need.  I  fancy 
there  are  few  persons  living  to-day  who  ever 
knew  the  secret  of  that  window,  but  I  am  one, 
as  in  due  time  you  shall  see. 


THE  BOARDED  WINDOW.  25! 

The  man's  name  was  said  to  be  M unlock. 
He  was  apparently  seventy  years  old,  actu- 
ally about  fifty.  Something  besides  years 
had  had  a  hand  in  his  aging.  His  hair  and 
long,  full  beard  were  white,  his  gray,  lusterless 
eyes  sunken,  his  face  singularly  seamed  with 
wrinkles,  which  appeared  to  belong  to  two  in- 
tersecting systems.  In  figure  he  was  tall  and 
spare,  with  a  stoop  of  the  shoulders — a  bur- 
den bearer.  I  never  saw  him;  these  particu- 
lars I  learned  from  my  grandfather,  from 
whom  also  I  got  the  story  when  I  was  a  lad. 
He  had  known  him  when  living  near  by  in 
that  early  day. 

One  day  Mr.  Murlock  was  found  in  his 
cabin,  dead.  It  was  not  a  time  and  place  for 
coroners  and  newspapers,  and  I  suppose  it 
was  agreed  that  he  had  died  from  natural 
causes  or  I  should  have  been  told,  and  should 
remember.  I  only  know  that,  with  what  was 
probably  a  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things,  the 
body  was  buried  near  the  cabin,  alongside  the 
grave  of  his  wife,  who  had  preceded  him 
by  so  many  years  that  local  tradition  had 
retained  hardly  a  hint  of  her  existence. 
That  closes  the  final  chapter  of  this  true 
story — excepting,  indeed,  the  circumstance 
that  many  years  afterward,  in  company  with 


252  THE  BOARDED   WINDOW. 

an  equally  intrepid  spirit,  I  penetrated  to  the 
place  and  ventured  near  enough  to  the  ruined 
cabin  to  throw  a  stone  against  it,  and  ran 
away  to  avoid  the  ghost  which  every  well- 
informed  boy  thereabout  knew  haunted  the 
spot.  As  this  record  grows  naturally  out  of 
my  personal  relation  to  what  it  records,  that 
circumstance,  as  a  part  of  the  relation,  has 
a  certain  relevancy.  But  there  is  an  earlier 
chapter — that  supplied  by  my  grandfather. 

When  Mr.  Murlock  built  his  cabin  and  be- 
gan laying  sturdily  about  with  his  ax  to  hew 
out  a  farm — the  rifle,  meanwhile,  his  means 
of  support — he  was  young,  strong,  and  full  of 
hope.  In  that  Eastern  country  whence  he 
came  he  had  married,  as  was  the  fashion,  a 
young  woman  in  all  ways  worthy  of  his  hon- 
est devotion,  who  shared  the  dangers  and 
privations  of  his  lot  with  a  willing  spirit  and 
light  heart.  There  is  no  known  record  of 
her  name;  of  her  charms  of  mind  and  person 
tradition  is  silent  and  the  doubter  is  at  liberty 
to  .entertain  his  doubt;  but  God  forbid  that  I 
should  share  it!  Of  their  affection  and  hap- 
piness there  is  abundant  assurance  in  every 
added  day  of  the  man's  widowed  life;  for 
what  but  the  magnetism  of  a  blessed  memory 
could  have  chained  that  venturesome  spirit 
to  a  lot  like  that  ? 


THE  BOARDED  WINDOW.  253 

One  day  Murlock  returned  from  gunning 
in  a  distant  part  of  the  forest  to  find  his  wife 
prostrate  with  fever  and  delirious.  There 
was  no  physician  within  miles,  no  neighbor, 
nor  was  she  in  a  condition  to  be  left,  to  sum- 
mon help.  So  he  set  about  the  task  of  nurs- 
ing her  back  to  health,  but  at  the  end  of  the 
third  day  she  passed  into  a  comatose  state, 
and  so  passed  away,  with  never  a  gleam  of 
returning  reason. 

From  what  we  know  of  a  nature  like  his 
we  may  venture  to  sketch  in  some  of  the  de- 
tails of  the  outline  picture  drawn  by  my 
grandfather.  When  convinced  that  she  was 
dead,  Murlock  had  sense  enough  to  remem- 
ber that  the  dead  must  be  prepared  for  bur- 
ial. In  performance  of  this  sacred  duty  he 
blundered  now  and  again,  did  certain  things 
incorrectly,  and  others  which  he  did  correctly 
were  done  over  and  over.  His  occasional 
failures  to  accomplish  some  simple  and  ordi- 
nary act  filled  him  with  astonishment,  like 
that  of  a  drunken  man  who  wonders  at  the 
suspension  of  familiar  natural  laws.  He  was 
surprised,  too,  that  he  did  not  weep — surprised 
and  a  little  ashamed;  surely  it  is  unkind  not  to 
weep  for  the  dead,  "To-morrow,"  he  said 
aloud,  ' '  I  shall  have  to  make  the  coffin  and 


254  THE  BOARDED  WINDOW. 

dig  the  grave;  and  then  I  shall  miss  her, 
when  she  is  no  longer  in  sight,  but  now— 
she  is  dead,  of  course,  but  it  is  all  right — it 
must  be  all  right,  somehow.  Things  cannot 
be  as  bad  as  they  seem." 

He  stood  over  the  body  in  the  fading  light, 
adjusting  the  hair  and  putting  the  finishing 
touches  on  the  simple  toilet,  doing  all  me- 
chanically, with  soulless  care.  And  still 
through  his  consciousness  ran  an  undersense 
of  conviction  that  all  was  right — that  he  should 
have  her  again  as  before,  and  everything  ex- 
plained. He  had  had  no  experience  in  grief; 
his  capacity  had  not  been  enlarged  by  use. 
His  heart  could  not  contain  it  all,  nor  his 
imagination  rightly  conceive  it.  He  did  not 
know  he  was  so  hard  hit;  that  knowledge 
would  come  later,  and  never  go.  Grief  is  an 
artist  of  powers  as  various  as  the  characters 
of  the  instruments  upon  which  he  plays  his 
dirges  for  the  dead,  evoking  from  some  the 
sharpest,  shrillest  notes,  from  others  the  low, 
grave  chords  that  throb  recurrent  like  the 
slow  beating  of  a  distant  drum.  Some  na- 
tures it  startles;  some  it  stupefies.  To  one  it 
comes  like  the  stroke  of  an  arrow,  stinging  all 
the  sensibilities  to  a  keener  life;  to  another 
as  the  blow  of  a  bludgeon,  which  in  crushing 


THE  BOARDED  U'fXDtUr.  255 

benumbs.  We  may  conceive  Murlock  to 
have  been  that  way  affected,  for  (and  here 
we  are  upon  surer  ground  than  that  of  con- 
jecture) no  sooner  had  he  finished  his  pious 
work  than,  sinking  into  a  chair  by  the  side 
of  the  table  upon  which  the  .body  lay,  and 
noting  how  white  the  profile  showed  in  the 
deepening  gloom,  then  laying  his  arms  upon 
the  table's  edge,  he  dropped  his  face  into 
them,  tearless  yet  and  unutterably  weary.  At 
that  moment  came  in  through  the  open  win- 
dow a  long,  wailing  sound  like  the  cry  of  a 
lost  child  in  the  far  deeps  of  the  darkening 
wood!  But  the  man  did  not  move.  Again 
and  nearer  than  before  sounded  that  unearthly 
cry  upon  his  failing  sense.  Perhaps  it  was  a 
wild  beast;  perhaps  it  was  a  dream;  for  Mur- 
lock was  asleep. 

Some  hours  later,  as  it  afterward  appeared, 
this  unfaithful  watcher  awoke,  and,  lifting  his 
head  from  his  arms,  intently  listened — he  knew 
not  why.  There  in  the  black  darkness  by  the 
side  of  his  dead,  recalling  all  without  a  shock, 
he  strained  his  eyes  to  see — he  knew  not 
what.  His  senses  all  were  alert,  his  breath 
was  suspended,  his  blood  had  stilled  its  tides 
as  if  to  assist  the  silence.  Who — what  had 
waked  him,  and  where  was  it? 


256  THE  BOARDED  WINDOW. 

Suddenly  the  table  shook  beneath  his  arms, 
and  at  the  same  moment  he  heard,  or  fancied 
that  he  heard,  a  light,  soft  step — another — 
sounds  as  of  bare  feet  upon  the  floor ! 

He  was  terrified  beyond  the  power  to  cry 
out  or  move.  Perforce  he  waited — waited 
there  in  the  darkness  through  centuries  of 
such  dread  as  one  may  know  yet  live  to  tell. 
He  tried  vainly  to  speak  the  dead  woman's 
name,  vainly  to  stretch  forth  his  hand  across 
the  table  to  learn  if  she  were  there.  His 
throat  was  powerless,  his  arms  and  hands 
were  like  lead.  Then  occurred  something 
most  frightful.  Some  heavy  body  seemed 
hurled  against  the  table  with  an  impetus  that 
pushed  it  against  his  breast  so  sharply  as 
nearly  to  overthrow  him,  and  at  the  same 
instant  he  heard  and  felt  the  fall  of  something 
upon  the  floor  with  so  violent  a  thump  that 
the  whole  house  was  shaken  by  the  impact. 
Then  ensued  a  scuffling  and  a  confusion  of 
sounds  impossible  to  describe.  Murlock  had 
risen  to  his  feet,  and  terror  had  by  excess  for- 
feited control  of  his  faculties.  He  flung  his 
hands  upon  the  table.  Nothing  was  there! 

There  is  a  point  at  which  terror  may  turn 
to  madness;  and  madness  incites  to  action. 
With  no  definite  intent,  from  no  motive  but 


THE  BOARDED  WINDOW.  2$J 

the  wayward  impulse  of  a  madman,  Murlock 
sprang  to  the  wall,  and  with  a  little  groping 
seized  his  loaded  rifle,  and  without  aim  dis- 
charged it.  By  the  flash  which  lit  up  the 
room  with  a  vivid  illumination,  he  saw  an 
enormous  panther  dragging  the  dead  woman 
toward  the  window,  its  teeth  fixed  in  her 
throat!  Then  there  were  darkness  blacker 
than  before,  and  silence;  and  when  he  re- 
turned to  consciousness  the  sun  was  high  and 
the  woods  vocal  with  songs  of  birds. 

The  body  lay  near  the  window,  where  the 
beast  had  left  it  when  frightened  away  by  the 
flash  and  report  of  the  rifle.  The  clothing 
was  deranged,  the  long  hair  in  disorder,  the 
limbs  lay  anyhow.  From  the  throat,  dread- 
fully lacerated,  had  issued  a  pool  of  blood  not 
yet  entirely  coagulated.  The  ribbon  with 
which  he  had  bound  the  wrists  was  broken; 
the  hands  were  tightly  clenched.  Between 
the  teeth  was  a  fragment  of  the  animal's  ear. 


THE     MIDDLE     TOE    OF     THE     RIGHT 
FOOT. 

TT  is  well  known  that  the  old  Manton  house 
is  haunted.  In  all  the  rural  district  near 
about,  and  even  in  the  town  of  Marshall,  a 
mile  away,  not  one  person  of  unbiased  mind 
entertains  a  doubt  of  it;  incredulity  is  confined 
to  those  opinionated  people  who  will  be  called 
"cranks"  as  soon  as  the  useful  word  shall 
have  penetrated  the  intellectual  demesne  of 
the  Marshall  Advance.  The  evidence  that  the 
house  is  haunted  is  of  two  kinds:  the  testi- 
mony of  disinterested  witnesses  who  have  had 
ocular  proof,  and  that  of  the  house  itself.  The 
former  may  be  disregarded  and  ruled  out  on 
any  of  the  various  grounds  of  objection  which 
may  be  urged  against  it  by  the  ingenious; 
but  facts  within  the  observation  of  all  are  fun- 
damental and  controlling. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Manton  house  has 
been  unoccupied  by  mortals  for  more  than 
ten  years,  and  with  its  outbuildings  is  slowly 
falling  into  decay — a  circumstance  which  in 
itself  the  judicious  will  hardly  venture  to  ig- 

(259) 


260  THE  MIDDLE  TOE     . 

nore.  It  stands  a  little  way  off  the  loneliest 
reach  of  the  Marshall  and  Harriston  road,  in 
an  opening  which  was  once  a  farm  and  is  still 
disfigured  with  strips  of  rotting  fence  and 
half  covered  with  brambles  overrunning  a 
stony  and  sterile  soil  long  unacquainted  with 
the  plow.  The  house  itself  is  in  tolerably 
good  condition,  though  badly  weather-stained 
and  in  dire  need  of  attention  from  the  glazier^ 
the  smaller  male  population  of  the  region 
having  attested  in  the  manner  of  its  kind  its 
disapproval  of  dwellings  without  dwellers. 
The  house  is  two  stories  in  height,  nearly 
square,  its  front  pierced  by  a  single  doorway 
flanked  on  each  side  by  a  window  boarded  up 
to  the  very  top.  Corresponding  windows 
above,  not  protected,  serve  to  admit  light  and 
rain  to  the  rooms  of  the  upper  floor.  Grass 
and  weeds  grow  pretty  rankly  all  about,  and 
a  few  shade  trees,  somewhat  the  worse  for 
wind  and  leaning  all  in  one  direction,  seem 
to  be  making  a  concerted  effort  to  run  away. 
In  short,  as  the  Marshall  town  humorist  ex- 
plained in  the  columns  of  the  Advance ',  ' '  the 
proposition  that  the  Manton  house  is  badly 
haunted  is  the  only  logical  conclusion  from 
the  premises."  The  fact  that  in  this  dwelling 
Mr.  Manton  thought  it  expedient  one  night 


OF  THE  RIGHT  FOOT.  26 1 

some  ten  years  ago  to  rise  and  cut  the  throats 
of  his  wife  and  two  small  children,  removing 
at  once  to  another  part  of  the  country,  has  no 
doubt  done  its'  share  in  directing  public  atten- 
tion to  the  fitness  of  the  place  for  supernatural 
phenomena. 

To  this  house,  one  summer  evening,  came 
four  men  in  a  wagon.  Three  of  them 
promptly  alighted,  and  the  one  who  had  been 
driving  hitched  the  team  to  the  only  remain- 
ing post  of  what  had  been  a  fence.  The  fourth 
remained  seated  in  the  wagon.  ' '  Come, ' ' 
said  one  of  his  companions,  approaching  him, 
while  the  others  moved  away  in  the  direction 
of  the  dwelling — "this  is  the  place." 

The  man  addressed  was  deathly  pale  and 
trembled  visibly.  ' '  By  God ! "  he  said  harshly, 
"this  is  a  trick,  and  it  looks  to  me  as  if  you 
were  in  it." 

"Perhaps  I  am,"  the  other  said,  looking 
him  straight  in  the  face  and  speaking  in  a 
tone  which  had  something  of  contempt  in  it. 
"You  will  remember,  however,  that  the 
choice  of  place  was,  with  your  own  assent,  left 
to  the  other  side.  Of  course  if  you  are  afraid 
of  spooks — ' 

"I  am  afraid  cf  nothing,"  the  man  inter- 
rupted with  another  oath,  and  sprang  to  the 


262  THE  MIDDLE  TOE 

ground.  The  two  then  joined  the  others  at 
the  door,  which  one  of  them  had  already 
opened  with  some  difficulty,  caused  by  rust 
of  lock  and  hinge.  All  entered.  Inside  it 
was  dark,  but  the  man  who  had  unlocked  the 
door  produced  a  candle  and  matches  and 
made  a  light.  He  then  unlocked  a  door  on 
their  right  as  they  stood  in  the  passage.  This 
gave  them  entrance  to  a  large,  square  room, 
which  the  candle  but  dimly  lighted.  The 
floor  had  a  thick  carpeting  of  dust,  which 
partly  muffled  their  footfalls.  Cobwebs  were 
in  the  angles  of  the  walls  and  depended  from 
the  ceiling  like  strips  of  rotting  lace,  making 
undulatory  movements  in  the  disturbed  air. 
The  room  had  two  windows  in  adjoining  sides, 
but  from  neither  could  anything  be  seen  ex- 
cept the  rough  inner  surfaces  of  boards  a  few 
inches  from  the  glass.  There  was  no  fire- 
place, no  furniture;  there  was  nothing.  Be- 
sides the  cobwebs  and  the  dust,  the  four  men 
were  the  only  objects  there  which  were  not  a 
part  of  the  architecture.  Strange  enough  they 
looked  in  the  yellow  light  of  the  candle.  The 
one  who  had  so  reluctantly  alighted  was  es- 
pecially ' '  spectacular  " — he  might  have  been 
called  sensational.  He  was  of  middle  age, 
heavily  built,  deep  chested  and  broad  shoul- 


OF  THE  RIGHT  FOOT.  263 

dered.  Looking  at  his  figure,  one  would 
have  said  that  he  had  a  giant's  strength;  at 
his  face,  that  he  would  use  it  like  a  giant. 
He  was  clean  shaven,  his  hair  rather  closely 
cropped  and  gray.  His  low  forehead  was 
seamed  with  wrinkles  above  the  eyes,  and 
over  the  nose  these  became  vertical.  The 
heavy  black  brows  followed  the  same  law, 
saved  from  meeting  only  by  an  upward  turn 
at  what  would  otherwise  have  been  the  point 
of  contact.  Deeply  sunken  beneath  these, 
glowed  in  the  obscure  light  a  pair  of  eyes  of 
uncertain  color,  but,  obviously  enough,  too 
small.  There  was  something  forbidding  in 
their  expression,  which  was  not  bettered  by 
the  cruel  mouth  and  wide  jaw.  The  nose 
was  well  enough,  as  noses  go;  one  does  not 
expect  much  of  noses.  All  that  was  sinister 
in  the  man's  face  seemed  accentuated  by  an 
unnatural  pallor — he  appeared  altogether 
bloodless. 

The  appearance  of  the  other  men  was  suf- 
ficiently commonplace:  they  were  such  per- 
sons as  one  meets  and  forgets  that  he  met. 
All  were  younger  than  the  man  described, 
between  whom  and  the  eldest  of  the  others, 
who  stood  apart,  there  was  apparently  no 
kindly  feeling.  They  avoided  looking  at  one 
another. 


264  THE  MIDDLE  TOE 

''Gentlemen,"  said  the  man  holding  the 
candle  and  keys,  "I  believe  everything-  is 
right.  Are  you  ready,  Mr.  Rosser?" 

The  man  standing  apart  from  the  group 
bowed  and  smiled. 

"And  you,  Mr.  Grossmith?" 

The  heavy  man  bowed  and  scowled. 

"You  will  please  remove  your  outer  cloth- 
ing." 

Their  hats,  coats,  waistcoats,  and  neckwear 
were  soon  removed  and  thrown  outside  the 
door,  in  the  passage.  The  man  with  the 
candle  now  nodded,  and  the  fourth  man — 
he  who  had  urged  Mr.  Grossmith  to  leave 
the  wagon — produced  from  the  pocket  of  his 
overcoat  two  long,  murderous-looking  bowie 
knives,  which  he  drew  from  the  scabbards. 

"They  are  exactly  alike,"  he  said,  present- 
ing one  to  each  of  the  two  principals — for  by 
this  time  the  dullest  observer  would  have 
understood  the  nature  of  this  meeting.  It 
was  to  be  a  duel  to  the  death. 

Each  combatant  took  a  knife,  examined  it 
critically  near  the  candle  and  tested  the 
strength  of  blade  and  handle  across  his  lifted 
knee.  Their  persons  were  then  searched  in 
turn,  each  by  the  second  of  the  other. 

"  If  it  is  agreeable  to  you,  Mr.  Grossmith," 


OF  THE  RIGIJT  FOOT.  265 

said  the  man  holding  the  light,  "you  will 
place  yourself  in  that  corner." 

He  indicated  the  angle  of  the  room  farthest 
from  the  door,  to  which  Grossmith  retired,  his 
second  parting  from  him  with  a  grasp  of  the 
hand  which  had  nothing  of  cordiality  in  it. 
In  the  angle  nearest  the  door  Mr.  Rosser 
stationed  himself,  and,  after  a  whispered  con- 
sultation, his  second  left  him,  joining  the  other 
near  the  door.  At  that  moment  the  candle 
was  suddenly  extinguished,  leaving  all  in  pro- 
found darkness.  This  may  have  been  done 
by  a  draught  from  the  opened  door;  whatever 
the  cause,  the  effect  was  appalling ! 

"Gentlemen,"  said  a  voice  which  sounded 
strangely  unfamiliar  in  the  altered  condition 
affecting  the  relations  of  the  senses,  "gentle- 
men, you  will  not  move  until  you  hear  the 
closing  of  the  outer  door." 

A  sound  of  trampling  ensued,  the  closing 
of  the  inner  door;  and  finally  the  outer  one 
closed  with  a  concussion  which  shook  the  en- 
tire building. 

A  few  minutes'  later  a  belated  farmer's  boy 
met  a  wagon  which  was  being  driven  furiously 
toward  the  town  of  Marshall.  He  declared 
that  behind  the  two  figures  on  the  front  seat 
stood  a  third  with  its  hands  upon  the  bowed 


266  THE  MIDDLE   TOE 

shoulders  of  the  others,  who  appeared  to 
struggle  vainly  to  free  themselves  from  its 
grasp.  This  figure,  unlike  the  others,  was 
clad  in  white,  and  had  undoubtedly  boarded 
the  wagon  as  it  passed  the  haunted  house. 
As  the  lad  could  boast  a  considerable  former 
experience  with  the  supernatural  thereabout, 
his  word  had  the  weight  justly  due  to  the  tes- 
timony of  an  expert.  The  story  eventually 
appeared  in  the  Advance,  with  some  slight 
literary  embellishments  and  a  concluding  in- 
timation that  the  gentlemen  referred  to  would 
be  allowed  the  use  of  the  paper's  columns  for 
their  version  of  the  night's  adventure.  But 
the  privilege  remained  without  a  claimant. 

II. 

The  events  which  led  up  to  this  "duel  in 
the  dark"  were  simple  enough.  One  even- 
ing three  young  men  of  the  town  of  Marshall 
were  sitting  in  a  quiet  corner  of  the  porch  of 
the  village  hotel,  smoking  and  discussing  such 
matters  as  three  educated  young  men  of  a 
Southern  village  would  naturally  find  interest- 
ing. Their  names  were  King,  Sancher,  and 
Rosser.  At  a  little  distance,  within  easy 
hearing  but  taking  no  part  in  the  conversation, 
sat  a  fourth.  He  was  a  stranger  to  the  others. 


OF  THE  RIGHT  FOOT.  267 

They  merely  knew  that  on  his  arrival  by  the 
stage  coach  that  afternoon  he  had  written  in 
the  hotel  register  the  name  Robert  Grossmith. 
He  had  not  been  observed  to  speak  to  any- 
one except  the  hotel  clerk.  He  seemed,  in- 
deed, singularly  fond  of  his  own  company — 
or,  as  the  personnel  of  the  Advance  expressed 
it,  <( grossly  addicted  to  evil  associations." 
But  then  it  should  be  said  in  justice  to  the 
stranger  that  the  personnel  was  himself  of  a 
too  convivial  disposition  fairly  to  judge  one 
differently  gifted,  and  had,  moreover,  experi- 
enced a  slight  rebuff  in  an  effort  at  an  ' '  inter- 
view. ' ' 

' '  I  hate  any  kind  of  deformity  in  a  woman, ' ' 
said  King,  ' '  whether  natural  or — or  acquired. 
I  have  a  theory  that  any  physical  defect  has 
its  correlative  mental  and  moral  defect." 

"I  infer,  then,"  said  Rosser,  gravely,  "that 
a  lady  lacking  the  advantage  of  a  nose  would 
find  the  struggle  to  become  Mrs.  King  an 
arduous  enterprise. ' ' 

' '  Of  course  you  may  put  it  that  way, ' '  was 
the  reply;  "but,  seriously,  I  once  threw  over 
a  most  charming  girl  on  learning,  quite  acci- 
dentally, that  she  had  suffered  amputation  of 
a  toe.  My  conduct  was  brutal,  if  you  like, 
but  if  I  had  married  that  girl  I  should  have 
been  miserable  and  should  have  made  her  so." 


268  THE  MIDDLE  TOE 

"Whereas,"  said  Sandier,  with  a  light 
laugh,  "by  marrying  a  gentleman  of  more 
liberal  views  she  escaped  with  a  cut  throat." 

"Ah,  you  know  to  whom  I  refer!  Yes, 
she  married  Manton,  but  I  don't  know  about 
his  liberality;  I'm  not  sure  but  he  cut  her 
throat  because  he  discovered  that  she  lacked 
that  excellent  thing  in  woman,  the  middle  toe 
of  the  right  foot." 

' '  Look  at  that  chap ! ' '  said  Rosser  in  a 
low  voice,  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  stranger. 

That  person  was  obviously  listening  intently 
to  the  conversation. 

''Damn  his  impudence!"  whispered  King 
— "what  ought  we  to  do?" 

"That's  an  easy  one,"  Rosser  replied,  rising. 
"Sir,"  he  continued,  addressing  the  stranger, 
"I  think  ft  would  be  better  if  you  would 
remove  your  chair  to  the  other  end  of  the 
veranda.  The  presence  of  gentlemen  is  evi- 
dently an  unfamiliar  situation  to  you." 

The  man  sprang  to  his  feet  and  strode  for- 
ward with  clenched  hands,  his  face  white 
with  rage.  All  were  now  standing.  Sancher 
stepped  between  the  belligerents. 

"You  are  hasty  and  unjust,"  he  said  to 
Rosser;  "this  gentleman  has  done  nothing  to 
deserve  such  language." 


OF  THE  RIGHT  FOOT.  269 

But  Rosser  would  not  withdraw  a  word. 
By  the  custom  of  the  country  and  the  time, 
there  could  be  but  one  outcome  to  the  quar- 
rel. 

"  T  demand  the  satisfaction  due  to  a  gentle- 
man," said  the  stranger,  who  -had  become 
more  calm.  "I  have  not  an  acquaintance  in 
this  region.  Perhaps  you,  sir,"  bowing  to 
Sancher,  "will  be  kind  enough  to  repre- 
sent me  in  this  matter." 

Sancher  accepted  the  trust — somewhat  re- 
luctantly, it  must  be  confessed,  for  the  man's 
appearance  and  manner  were  not  at  all  to  his 
liking.  King,  who,  during  the  colloquy,  had 
hardly  removed  his  eyes  from  the  stranger's 
face,  and  had  not  spoken  a  word,  consented 
with  a  nod  to  act  for  Rosser,  and  the  upshot 
of  it  was  that,  the  principals  having  retired, 
a  meeting  was  arranged  for  the  next  evening. 
The  nature  of  the  arrangements  has  been  al- 
ready disclosed.  The  duel  with  knives  in  a 
dark  room  was  once  a  commoner  feature  of 
Southwestern  life  than  it  is  likely  to  be  again. 
How  thin  a  veneering  of  "chivalry"  covered 
the  essential  brutality  of  the  code  under  which 
such  encounters  were  possible,  we  shall  see. 


270  THE  MIDDLE  TOE 

III. 

In  the  blaze  of  a  midsummer  noonday,  the 
old  Manton  house  was  hardly  true  to  its  tra- 
ditions. It  was  of  the  earth,  earthy.  The 
sunshine  caressed  it  warmly  and  affectionately, 
with  evident  unconsciousness  of  its  bad  repu- 
tation. The  grass  greening  all  the  expanse 
in  its  front  seemed  to  grow,  not  rankly,  but 
with  a  natural  and  joyous  exuberance,  and 
the  weeds  blossomed  quite  like  plants.  Full 
of  charming  lights  and  shadows,  and  popu- 
lous with  pleasant-voiced  birds,  the  neglected 
shade  trees  no  longer  struggled  to  run  away, 
but  bent  reverently  beneath  their  burdens. of 
sun  and  song.  Even  in  the  glassless  upper 
windows  was  an  expression  of  peace  and  con- 
tentment, due  to  the  light  within.  Over  the 
stony  fields  the  visible  heat  danced  with  a 
lively  tremor  incompatible  with  the  gravity 
which  is  an  attribute  of  the  supernatural. 

Such  was  the  aspect  under  which  the  place 
presented  itself  to  Sheriff  Adams  and  two 
other  men  who  had  come  out  from  Marshall 
to  look  at  it.  One  of  these  men  was  Mr. 
King,  the  sheriff's  deputy;  the  other,  whose 
name  was  Brewer,  was  a  brother  of  the  late 
Mrs.  Manton.  Under  a  beneficent  law  of  the 
State  relating  to  property  which  has  been 


OF  THE  RIGHT  FOOT.  27 1 

for  a  certain  period  abandoned  by  its  owner, 
whose  residence  cannot  be  ascertained,  the 
sheriff  was  the  legal  custodian  of  the  Manton 
farm  and  the  appurtenances  thereunto  belong- 
ing. His  present  visit  was  in  mere  perfunc- 
tory compliance  with  some  order  of  a  court 
in  which  Mr.  Brewer  had  an  action  to  get 
possession  of  the  property  as  heir  to  his  de- 
ceased sister.  By  a  mere  coincidence  the 
visit  was  made  on  the  day  after  the  night  that 
Deputy  King  had  unlocked  the  house  for  an- 
other and  very  different  purpose.  His  pres- 
ence now  was  not  of  his  own  choosing:  he 
had  been  ordered  to  accompany  his  superior, 
and  at  the  moment  could  think  of  nothing 
more  prudent  than  simulated  alacrity  in  obe- 
dience. He  had  intended  going  anyhow, 
but  in  other  company. 

Carelessly  opening  the  front  door,  which  to 
his  surprise  was  not  locked,  the  sheriff  was 
amazed  to  see,  lying  on  the  floor  of  the 
passage  into  which  it  opened,  a  confused  heap 
of  men's  apparel.  Examination  showed  it  to 
consist  of  two  hats,  and  the  same  number  of 
coats,  waistcoats,  and  scarves,  all  in  a  re- 
markably good  state  of  preservation,  albeit 
somewhat  denied  by  the  dust  in  which  they 
lay.  Mr.  Brewer  was  equally  astonished,  but 


272  Tin-:  ^^nnLR  TOE 

Mr.  King's  emotion  is  not  of  record.  With  a 
new  and  lively  interest  in  his  own  actions,  the 
sheriff  now  unlatched  and  pushed  open  a  door 
on  the  right,  and  the  three  entered.  The 
room  was  apparently  vacant — no;  as  their 
eyes  became  accustomed  to  the  dimmer  light, 
something  was  visible  in  the  farthest  angle  of 
the  wall.  It  was  a  human  figure — that  of  a 
man  crouching  close  in  the  corner.  Some- 
thing in  the  attitude  made  the  intruders  halt 
when  they  had  barely  passed  the  threshold. 
The  figure  more  and  more  clearly  defined  it- 
self. The  man  was  upon  one  knee,  his  back 
in  the  angle  of  the  wall,  his  shoulders  ele- 
vated to  the  level  of  his  ears,  his  hands  before 
his  face,  palms  outward,  the  fingers  spread 
and  crooked  like  claws;  the  white  face  turned 
upward  on  the  retracted  neck  had  an  expres- 
sion of  unutterable  fright,  the  mouth  half  open, 
the  eyes  incredibly  expanded.  He  was  stone 
dead — dead  of  terror!  Yet,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  knife,  which  had  evidently  fallen  from 
his  own  hand,  not  another  object  was  in  the 
room. 

In  the  thick  dust  which  covered  the  floor 
were  some  confused  footprints  near  the  door 
and  along  the  wall  through  which  it  opened. 
Along  one  of  the  adjoining  walls,  too,  past 


OF  THE  RIGHT  FOOT. 


273 


the  boardecl-up  windows,  was  the  trail  made 
by  the  man  himself  in  reaching  his  corner. 
Instinctively  in  approaching  the  body  the 
three  men  now  followed  that  trail.  The  sher- 
iff grasped  one  of  the  outthrown  arms;  it  was 
as  rigid  as  iron,  and  the  application  of  a  gen- 
tle force  rocked  the  entire  body  without  alter- 
ing the  relation  of  its  parts.  Brewer,  pale 
with  terror,  gazed  intently  into  the  distorted 
face.  "God  of  mercy!"  he  suddenly  cried, 
"it  is  Manton!" 

"You  are  right,"  said  King,  with  an  evi- 
dent attempt  at  calmness:  "I  knew  Manton. 
He  then  wore  a  full  beard  and  his  hair  long, 
but  this  is  he." 

He  might  have  added :  "  I  recognized  him 
when  he  challenged  Rosser.  I  told  Rosser 
and  Sanchez  who  he  was  before  we  played 
him  this  horrible  trick.  When  Rosser  left 
this  dark  room  at  our  heels,  forgetting  his 
clothes  in  the  excitement,  and  driving  away 
with  us  in  his  shirt — all  through  the  discredit- 
able proceedings  we  knew  whom  we  were 
dealing  with,  murderer  and  coward  that  he 
was!" 

But  nothing  of  this  did  Mr.  King  say. 
With  his  better  light  he  was  trying  to  pene- 
trate the  mystery  of  the  man's  death.  That 
18 


274  THE  MIDDLE   '/'<>/•: 

he  had  not  once  moved  from  the  corner 
where  he  had  been  stationed,  that  his  posture 
was  that  of  neither  attack  nor  defense,  that  he 
had  dropped  his  weapon,  that  he  had  obvi- 
ously perished  of  sheer  terror  of  something 
that  he  saw — these  were  circumstances  which 
Mr.  King's  disturbed  intelligence  could  not 
rightly  comprehend. 

Groping  in  intellectual  darkness  for  a  clew 
to  his  maze  of  doubt,  his  gaze,  directed  me- 
chanically downward,  as  is  the  way  of  one 
who  ponders  momentous  matters,  fell  upon 
something  which,  there,  in  the  light  of  day,  and 
in  the  presence  of  living  companions,  struck 
him  with  an  invincible  terror.  In  the  dust  of 
years  that  lay  thick  upon  the  floor — leading 
from  the  door  by  which  they  had  entered, 
straight  across  the  room  to  within  a  yard  of 
Manton's  crouching  corpse — were  three  par- 
allel lines  of  footprints — light  but  definite  im- 
pressions of  bare  feet,  the  outer  ones  those  of 
small  children,  the  inner  a  woman's-  From 
the  point  at  which  they  ended  they  did  not 
return;  they  pointed  all  one  way.  Brewer, 
who  had  observed  them  at  the  same  moment, 
was  leaning  forward  in  an  attitude  of  rapt  at- 
tention, horribly  pale. 

"  Look  at  that!"   he  cried,   pointing  with 


OF  THE  RIG  FIT  FOOT.  2J$ 

both  hands  at  the  nearest  print  of  the  wom- 
an's right  foot,  where  she  had  apparently 
stopped  and  stood.  "  The  middle  toe  is 
missing — it  was  Gertrude!" 

Gertrude  was  the  late  Mrs.  Manton,  sister 
to  Mr.  Brewer. 


HA1TA  THE   SHEPHERD. 

TN  the  heart  of  Haita  the  illusions  of  youth 
had  not  been  supplanted  by  those  of  age 
and  experience.  His  thoughts  were  pure  and 
pleasant,  for  his  life  was  simple  and  his  soul 
devoid  of  ambition.  He  rose  with  the  sun, 
and  went  forth  to  pray  at  the  shrine  of  Has- 
tur,  the  god  of  shepherds,  who  heard  and  was 
pleased.  After  performance  of  th's  pious  rite 
Haita  unbarred  the  gate  of  the  fold,  and  with 
a  cheerful  mind  drove  his  flock  afield,  eating 
his  morning  meal  of  curds  and  oat  cake  as  he 
went,  occasionally  pausing  to  add  a  few  ber- 
ries, cold  with  dew,  or  to  drink  of  the  waters 
that  came  away  from  the  hills  to  join  the 
stream  in  the  middle  of  the  valley  and  be 
borne  along  with  it,  he  knew  not  whither. 

During  the  long  summer  day,  as  his  sheep 
cropped  the  good  grass  which  the  gods  had 
made  to  grow  for  them,  or  lay  with  their  fore- 
legs doubled  under  their  breasts  and  indo- 
lently chewed  the  cud,  Haita,  reclining  in  the 
shadow  of  a  tree,  or  sitting  upon  a  rock, 

(277) 


278  HA  IT  A    THE  SHEPHERD. 

played  so  sweet  music  upon  his  reed  pipe 
that  sometimes  from  the  corner  of  his  eye  he 
got  accidental  glimpses  of  the  minor  sylvan 
deities,  leaning  forward  out  of  the  copse  to 
hear;  but  if  he  looked  at  them  directly,  they 
vanished.  From  this — for  he  must  be  think- 
ing if  he  would  not  turn  into  one  of  his  own 
sheep — he  drew  the  solemn  inference  that 
happiness  may  come  if  not  sought,  but  if 
looked  for  will  never  be  seen;  for,  next  to  the 
favor  of  Hastur,  who  never  disclosed  himself, 
Haita  most  valued  the  friendly  interest  of  his 
neighbors,  the  shy  immortals  of  the  wood  and 
and  stream.  At  nightfall  he  drove  his  flock 
back  to  the  fold,  saw  that  the  gate  was  secure, 
and  retired  to  his  cave  for  refreshment  and  for 
dreams. 

So  passed  his  life,  one  day  like  another, 
save  when  the  storms  uttered  the  wrath  of  an 
offended  god.  Then  Haita  cowered  in  his 
cave,  his  face  hidden  in  his  hands,  and  prayed 
that  he  alone  might  be  punished  for  his  sins 
and  the  world  saved  from  destruction.  Some- 
times when  there  was  a  great  rain,  and  the 
stream  came  out  of  its  banks,  compelling  him 
to  urge  his  terrified  flock  to  the  uplands,  he 
interceded  for  the  people  in  the  great  cities, 
which  he  had  been  told  lay  in  the  plain  be- 


HA  IT  A    THE  SHEPHERD.  2JC) 

yond  the  two  blue  hills  which  formed  the 
gateway  of  his  valley. 

"It  is  kind  of  thee,  O  Hastur, "  so  he 
prayed,  "to  give  me  mountains  so  near  to 
my  dwelling  and  my  fold  that  I  and  my  sheep 
can  escape  the  angry  torrents;  but  the  rest 
of  the  world  thou  must  thyself  deliver  in  some 
way  that  I  know  not  of,  or  I  will  no  longer 
worship  thee. ' ' 

And  Hastur,  knowing  that  Haita  was  a 
youth  who  kept  his  word,  spared  the  cities 
and  turned  the  waters  into  the  sea. 

So  he  had  lived  since  he  could  remember. 
He  could  not  rightly  conceive  any  other  mode 
of  existence.  The  holy  hermit  who  lived  at 
the  head  of  the  valley,  a  full  hour's  journey 
away,  from  whom  he  had  heard  the  tale  of  the 
great  cities  where  dwelt  people — poor  souls ! — 
who  had  no  sheep,  gave  him  no  knowledge 
of  that  early  time,  when,  so  he  reasoned,  he 
must  have  been  small  and  helpless  like  a 
lamb. 

It  was  through  thinking  on  these  myster- 
ies and  marvels,  and  on  that  horrible  change 
to  silence  and  decay  which  he  felt  sure  must 
sometime  come  to  him,  as  he  had  seen  it 
come  to  so  many  of  his  flock — as  it  came  to 
all  living  things  except  the  birds — that  Haita 


28O  HAITA    THE  SHEPHERD. 

first  became  conscious  how  miserable  was  his 
lot, 

"It  is  necessary,"  he  said,  "that  I  know 
whence  and  how  I  came;  for  how  can  one 
perform  his  duties  unless  able  to  judge  what 
they  are  by  the  way  in  which  he  was  intrusted 
with  them?  And  what  contentment  can  I 
have  when  I  know  not  how  long  it  is  going 
to  last?  Perhaps  before  another  sun  I  may 
be  changed,  and  then  what  will  become  of 
the  sheep?  What,  indeed,  will  have  become 
of  me?  " 

Pondering  these  things,  Haita  became  mel- 
ancholy and  morose.  He  no  longer  spoke 
cheerfully  to  his  flock,  nor  ran  with  alacrity 
to  the  shrine  of  Hastur.  In  every  breeze  he 
heard  whispers  of  malign  deities  whose  exist- 
ence he  now  first  observed.  Every  cloud 
was  a  portent  signifying  disaster,  and  the 
darkness  was  full  of  new  terrors.  His  reed 
pipe  when  applied  to  his  lips  gave  out  no 
melody  but  a  dismal  wail;  the  sylvan  and  ri- 
parian intelligences  no  longer  thronged  the 
thicket-side  to  listen,  but  fled  from  the  sound, 
as  he  knew  by  the  stirred  leaves  and  bent 
flowers.  He  relaxed  his  vigilance,  and  many 
of  his  sheep  strayed  away  into  the  hills  and 
were  lost.  Those  that  remained  became  lean 


HA  IT  A    THE  SHEPHERD.  28 1 

and  ill  for  lack  of  good  pasturage,  for  he 
would  not  seek  it  for  them,  but  conducted 
them  day  after  day  to  the  same  spot,  through 
mere  abstraction,  while  puzzling  about  life  and 
death — of  immortality  he  knew  nothing. 

One  day,  while  indulging  in  the  gloomiest 
reflections,  he  suddenly  sprang  from  the  rock 
upon  which  he  sat,  and,  with  a  determined 
gesture  of  the  right  hand,  exclaimed:  "I 
will  no  longer  be  a  suppliant  for  knowledge 
which  the  gods  withhold.  Let  them  look  to 
it  that  they  do  me  no  wrong.  I  will  do  my 
duty  as  best  I  can,  and  if  I  err,  upon  their 
own  heads  be  it." 

Suddenly,  as  he  spoke,  a  great  brightness 
fell  about  him,  causing  him  to  look  upward, 
thinking  the  sun  had  burst  through  a  rift  in 
the  clouds;  but  there  were  no  clouds.  Hardly 
more  than  an  arm's  length  away  stood  a 
beautiful  maiden.  So  beautiful  she  was  that 
the  flowers  about  her  feet  folded  their  petals 
in  despair  and  bent  their  heads  in  token  of 
submission;  so  sweet  her  look  that  the  hum- 
ming birds  thronged  her  eyes,  thrusting  their 
thirsty  bills  almost  into  them,  and  the  wild 
bees  were  about  her  lips.  And  such  was  her 
brightness  that  the  shadows  of  all  objects  lay 
divergent  from  her  feet,  turning  as  she  moved. 


282  HAITA    THE  SHEPHERD. 

Haita  was  entranced.  Rising,  he  knelt  be- 
fore her  in  adoration,  and  she  laid  her  hand 
upon  his  head. 

"Come,"  she  said  in  a  voice  which  had 
the  music  of  all  the  bells  of  his  flock — "  come, 
thou  art  not  to  worship  me,  who  am  no  god- 
dess, but  if  thou  art  truthful  and  dutiful,  I 
will  abide  with  thee. ' ' 

Haita  seized  her  hand,  and  stammering  his 
joy  and  gratitude  arose,  and  hand  in  hand 
they  stood  and  smiled  in  one  another's  eyes. 
He  gazed  upon  her  with  reverence  and  rap- 
ture. He  said:  "I  pray  thee,  lovely  maid, 
tell  me  thy  name  and  whence  and  why  thou 
comest." 

At  this  she  laid  a  warning  finger  on  her  lip 
and  began  to  withdraw.  Her  beauty  under- 
went a  visible  alteration  that  made  him  shud- 
der, he  knew  not  why,  for  still  she  was  beau- 
tiful. The  landscape  was  darkened  by  a  giant 
shadow  sweeping  across  the  valley  with  the 
speed  of  a  vulture.  In  the  obscurity  the 
maiden's  figure  grew  dim  and  indistinct  and 
her  voice  seemed  to  come  from  a  distance,  as 
she  said,  in  a  tone  of  sorrowful  reproach: 
"  Presumptuous  and  ungrateful  man!  must  I 
then  so  soon  leave  thee?  Would  nothing  do 
but  thou  must  at  once  break  the  eternal  com- 
pact?" 


HAITA    THE  SHEPHERD.  283 

Inexpressibly  grieved,  Ha'ita  fell  upon  his 
knees  and  implored  her  to  remain — rose  and 
sought  her  in  the  deepening  darkness — ran 
in  circles,  calling  to  her  aloud,  but  all  in  vain. 
She  was  no  longer  visible,  but  out  of  the 
gloom  he  heard  her  voice  saying:  "Nay, 
thou  shalt  not  have  me  by  seeking.  Go  to 
thy  duty,  faithless  shepherd,  or  we  never 
meet  again." 

Night  had  fallen,  the  wolves  were  howling 
in  the  hills,  and  the  terrified  sheep  crowding 
about  his  feet.  In  the  demands  of  the  hour 
he  forgot  his  disappointment,  drove  his  flock 
to  the  folql,  and  repairing  to  the  place  of  wor- 
ship poured  out  his  heart  in  gratitude  to 
Hastur  for  permitting  him  to  save  his  flock, 
then  retired  to  his  cave  and  slept. 

When  Haita  awoke,  the  sun  was  high  and 
shone  in  at  his  cave,  illuminating  it  with  a 
great  glory.  And  there,  beside  him,  sat  the 
maiden.  She  smiled  upon  him  with  a  smile 
that  seemed  the  visible  music  of  his  pipe  of 
reeds.  He  dared  not  speak,  fearing  to  offend 
her  as  before,  for  he  knew  not  what  he  could 
venture  to  say. 

"Because,"  she  said,  "thou  didst  thy  duty 
by  the  flock,  and  didst  not  forget  to  thank 
Hastur  for  staying  the  wolves  of  the  night,  I 


284  HA  IT  A    THE  SHEPHERT). 

am  come  to  thee  again.  Wilt  thou  have  me 
for  a  companion?  " 

"Who  would  not  have  thee  forever?"  re- 
plied Haita.  "Oh!  never  again  leave  me 
until — until  I — change  and  become  silent  and 
motionless." 

Haita  had  no  word  for  death. 

"I  wish,  indeed,"  he  continued,  "that 
thou  wert  of  my  own  sex,  that  we  might 
wrestle  and  run  races  and  so  never  tire  of 
being  together." 

At  these  words  the  maiden  arose  and  passed 
out  of  the  cave,  and  Haita,  springing  from 
his  couch  of  fragrant  boughs  to  overtake  and 
detain  her,  observed,  to  his  astonishment,  that 
the  rain  was  falling  and  the  stream  in  the 
middle  of  the  valley  had  come  out  of  its 
banks.  The  sheep  were  bleating  in  terror, 
for  the  rising  waters  had  invaded  their  fold. 
And  there  was  danger  for  the  unknown  cities 
of  the  distant  plain. 

It  was  many  days  before  Haita  saw  the 
maiden  again.  One  day  he  was  returning 
from  the  head  of  the  valley,  where  he  had 
gone  with  ewe's  milk  and  oat  cake  and  ber- 
ries for  the  holy  hermit,  who  was  too  old  and 
feeble  to  provide  himself  with  food, 

"Poor  old  man!"    he   said   aloud,  as    he 


HAITA    THE  SHEPHERD.  285 

trudged  along  homeward.  "  I  will  return  to- 
morrow and  bear  him  on  my  back  to  my  own 
dwelling,  where  I  can  care  for  him.  Doubt- 
less it  is  for  that  that  Hastur  has  reared  me  all 
these  years,  and  gives  me  health  and  strength." 

As  he  spoke,  the  maiden,  clad  in  glittering 
garments,  met  him  in  the  path  with  a  smile 
which  took  away  his  breath. 

"  I  am  come  again,"  she  said,  "  to  dwell 
with  thee  if  thou  wilt  now  have  me,  for  none 
else  will.  Thou  mayest  have  learned  wisdom, 
and  art  willing  to  take  me  as  I  am,  nor  care 
to  know." 

Haita  threw  himself  at  her  feet.  "Beauti- 
ful being,"  he  cried,  "if  thou  wilt  but  deign 
to  accept  all  the  devotion  of  my  heart  and 
soul — after  Hastur  be  served — it  is  yours  for- 
ever. But,  alas!  thou  art  capricious  and  way- 
ward. Before  to-morrow's  sun  I  may  lose 
thee  again.  Promise,  I  beseech  thee,  that 
however  in  my  ignorance  I  may  offend,  thou 
wilt  forgive  and  remain  always  with  me." 

Scarcely  had  he  finished  speaking  when  a 
troop  of  wolves  sprang  out  of  the  hills,  and 
came  racing  toward  him  with  crimson  mouths 
and  fiery  eyes.  The  maiden  again  vanished, 
and  he  turned  and  fled  for  his  life.  Nor  did 
he  stop  until  he  was  in  the  cot  of  the  holy 


286  II A  IT  A    THE  SHEPHERD. 

hermit,  whence  he  had  set  out.  Hastily  bar- 
ring the  door  against  the  wolves,  he  cast  him- 
self upon  the  ground  and  wept. 

"My  son,"  said  the  hermit  from  his  couch 
of  straw,  freshly  gathered  that  morning  by 
Haifa's  hands,  "it  is  not  like  thee  to  weep  for 
wolves — tell  me  what  sorrow  has  befallen  thee, 
that  age  may  minister  to  the  hurts  of  youth 
with  such  balms  as  it  hath  of  its  wisdom." 

Haita  told  him  all:  how  thrice  he  had  met 
the  radiant  maid,  and  thrice  she  had  left  him 
forlorn.  He  related  minutely  all  that  had 
passed  between  them,  omitting  no  word  of 
what  had  been  said. 

When  he  had  ended,  the  holy  hermit  was 
a  moment  silent,  then  said:  "  My  son,  I  have 
attended  to  thy  story,  and  I  know  the  maiden. 
I  have  myself  seen  her,  as  have  many.  Know, 
then,  that  her  name,  which  she  would  not 
even  permit  thee  to  inquire,  is  Happiness. 
Thou  saidst  the  truth  to  her,  that  she  was  ca- 
pricious, for  she  imposes  conditions  that  man 
cannot  fulfill,  and  delinquency  is  punished  by 
desertion.  She  cometh  only  when  unsought, 
and  will  not  be  questioned.  One  manifesta- 
tion of  curiosity,  one  sign  of  doubt,  one  ex- 
pression of  misgiving,  and  she  is  away!  How 
long  didst  thou  have  her  at  any  time  before 
she  fled?" 


HA  IT  A   THE  SHEPHERD.  2&J 

"But  a  single  instant,"  answered  Haita, 
blushing  with  shame  at  the  confession.  '  'Each 
time  I  drove  her  away  in  one  moment." 

"Unfortunate  youth!"  said  the  holy  her- 
mit, "but  for  thine  indiscretion  thou  mightst 
have  had  her  for  two." 


AN  HEIRESS  FROM  REDHORSE. 

CORONADO,  June  20. 

I  find  myself  more  and  more  interested  in 
him.  It  is  not,  I  am  sure,  his — do  you  know 
any  noun  corresponding  to  the  adjective 
"handsome"?  One  does  not  like  to  say 
"beauty"  when  speaking  of  a  man.  He  is 
handsome  enough,  heaven  knows;  I  should 
not  even  care  to  trust  you  with  him — faithful- 
est  of  all  possible  wives  that  you  are — when 
he  looks  his  best,  as  he  always  does.  Nor  do 
I  think  the  fascination  of  his  manner  has 
much  to  do  with  it.  You  recollect  that  the 
charm  of  art  inheres  in  that  which  is  undefin- 
able,  and  to  you  and  me,  my  dear  Irene,  I 
fancy  there  is  rather  less  of  that  in  the  branch 
of  art  under  consideration  than  to  girls  in 
their  first  season.  I  fancy  I  know  how  my 
fine  gentleman  produces  many  of  his  effects, 
and  could,  perhaps,  give  'him  a  pointer  on 
heightening  them.  Nevertheless,  his  manner 
is  something  truly  delightful.  I  suppose  what 
interests  me  chiefly  is  the  man's  brains.  His 
19  (289) 


2QO  AN  HEIKESS  FROM  REDHORSE 

conversation  is  the  best  I  have  ever  heard,  and 
altogether  unlike  anyone's  else.  He  seems  to 
know  everything,  as,  indeed,  he  ought,  for  he 
has  been  everywhere,  read  everything,  seen 
all  there  is  to  see — sometimes  I  think  rather 
more  than  is  good  for  him — and  had  acquaint- 
ance with  the  queerest  people.  And  then  his 
voice — Irene,  when  I  hear  it  I  actually  feel  as 
if  I  ought  to  \ia.vepaid  at  the  door,  though  of 
course  it  is  my  own  door. 

July  3. 

I  fear  my  remarks  about  Dr.  Barritz  must 
have  been,  being  thoughtless,  very  silly,  or 
you  would  not  have  written  of  him  with  such 
levity,  not  to  say  disrespect.  Believe  me, 
dearest,  he  has  more  dignity  and  seriousness 
(of  the  kind,  I  mean,  which  is  not  inconsist- 
ent with  a  manner  sometimes  playful  and  al- 
ways charming)  than  any  of  the  men  that  you 
and  I  ever  met.  And  young  Raynor — you 
knew  Raynor  at  Monterey — tells  me  that  the 
men  all  like  him,  and  that  he  is  treated  with 
something  like  deference  everywhere.  There 
is  a  mystery,  too — something  about  his  con- 
nection with  the  Blavatsky  people  in  North- 
ern India.  Raynor  either  would  not  or  could 
not  tell  me  the  particulars.  I  infer  that  Dr. 
Barritz  is  thought — don't  you  dare  to  laugh 


AN  HEIRESS  FROM  REDHORSE  2QI 

— a  magician!  Could  anything  be  finer  than 
that?  An  ordinary  mystery  is  not,  of  course, 
as  good  as  a  scandal,  but  when  it  relates  to 
dark  and  dreadful  practices — to  the  exercise 
of  unearthly  powers — could  anything  be  more 
piquant?  It  explains,  too,  .the  singular  in- 
fluence the  man  has  upon  me.  It  is  the  un- 
definable  in  his  art — black  art.  Seriously, 
dear,  I  quite  tremble  when  he  looks  me  full 
in  the  eyes  with  those  unfathomable  orbs  of 
his,  which  I  have  already  vainly  attempted  to 
describe  to  you.  How  dreadful  if  he  have  the 
power  to  make  one  fall  in  love!  Do  you 
know  if  the  Blavatsky  crowd  have  that  power 
— outside  of  Sepoy? 

July  1 6. 

The  strangest  thing!  Last  evening  while 
Auntie  was  attending  one  of  the  hotel  hops  (I 
hate  them)  Dr.  Barritz  called.  It  was  scan- 
dalously late — I  actually  believe  he  had  talked 
with  Auntie  in  the  ballroom,  and  learned  from 
her  that  I  was  alone.  I  had  been  all  the 
evening  contriving  how  to  worm  out  of  him 
the  truth  about  his  connection  with  the  Thugs 
in  Sepoy,  and  all  of  that  black  business,  but 
the  moment  he  fixed  his  eyes  on  me  (for  I  ad- 
mitted him,  I'm  ashamed  to  say)  I  was  help- 
less, I  trembled,  I  blushed,  I — O  Irene,  Irene, 


2Q2  AN  HEIRESS  FROM  REDHORSE. 

I  love  the  man  beyond  expression,  and  you 
know  how  it  is  yourself ! 

Fancy!  I,  an  ugly  duckling  from  Redhorse 
— daughter  (they  say)  of  old  Calamity  Jim — 
certainly  his  heiress,  with  no  living  relation 
but  an  absurd  old  aunt,  who  spoils  me  a  thou- 
sand and  fifty  ways — absolutely  destitute  of 
everything  but  a  million  dollars  and  a  hope 
in  Paris, — I  daring  to  love  a  god  like  him! 
My  dear,  if  I  had  you  here,  I  could  tear  your 
hair  out  with  mortification. 

I  am  convinced  that  he  is  aware  of  my  feel- 
ing, for  he  stayed  but  a  few  moments,  said 
nothing  but  what  another  man  might  have 
said  half  as  well,  and  pretending  that  he  had 
an  engagement  went  away.  I  learned  to- 
day (a  little  bird  told  me — the  bell  bird)  that 
he  went  straight  to  bed.  How  does  that 
strike  you  as  evidence  of  exemplary  habits? 

July  17. 

That  little  wretch,  Raynor,  called  yesterday, 
and  his  babble  set  me  almost  wild.  He  never 
runs  down — that  is  to  say,  when  he  extermin- 
ates a  score  of  reputations,  more  or  less,  he 
does  not  pause  between  one  reputation  and 
the  next.  (By  the  way,  he  inquired  about 
you,  and  his  manifestations  of  interest  in  you 
had,  I  confess,  a  good  deal  of  vraisemblance.*) 


AN  HEIRESS  FROM  REDHORSE.  293 

Mr.  Raynor  observes  no  game  laws;  like 
Death  (which  he  would  inflict  if  slander  were 
fatal)  he  has  all  seasons  for  lys  own.  But  I 
like  him,  for  we  knew  one  another  at  Red- 
horse  when  we  were  young  and  true-hearted 
and  barefooted.  He  was  known  in  those  far 
fair  days  as  "  Giggles, "and  I — O  Irene,  can 
you  ever  forgive  me? — I  was  called  "Gunny." 
God  knows  why;  perhaps  in  allusion  to  the 
material  of  my  pinafores;  perhaps  because 
the  name  is  in  alliteration  with  "Giggles," 
for  Gig  and  I  were  inseparable  playmates,  and 
the  miners  may  have  thought  it  a  delicate 
compliment  to  recognize  some  kind  of  rela- 
tionship between  us. 

Later,  we  took  in  a  third — another  of  Ad- 
versity's brood,  who,  like  Garrick  between 
Tragedy  and  Comedy,  had  a  chronic  inability 
to  adjudicate  the  rival  claims  (to  himself)  of 
Frost  and  Famine.  Between  him  and  the 
grave  there  wasr  seldom  anything  more  than 
a  single  suspender  and  the  hope  of  a  meal 
which  would  at  the  same  time  support  life  and 
make  it  insupportable.  He  literally  picked 
up  a  precarious  living  for  himself  and  an  aged 
mother  by  "  chloriding  the  dumps,"  that  is  to 
say,  the  miners  permitted  him  to  search  the 
heaps  of  waste  rock  for  such  pieces  of  ' '  pay 


294  AN  HEIRESS  FROM  REDHORSE. 

ore"  as  had  been  overlooked;  and  these  he 
sacked  up  and  sold  at  the  Syndicate  Mill. 
He  became  a  member  of  our  firm — ''Gunny, 
Giggles,  and  Dumps  ' '  thenceforth — through 
my  favor;  for  I  could  not  then,  nor  can  I  now, 
be  indifferent  to  his  courage  and  prowess  in 
defending  against  Giggles  the  immemorial 
right  of  his  sex  to  insult  a  strange  and  unpro- 
tected female — myself.  After  old  Jim  struck 
it  in  the  Calamity,  and  I  began  to  wear  shoes 
and  go  to  school,  and  in  emulation  Giggles 
took  to  washing  his  face,  and  became  Jack 
Raynor,  of  Wells,  Fargo  &  Co. ,  and  old  Mrs. 
Barts  was  herself  chlorided  to  her  fathers, 
Dumps  drifted  over  to  San  Juan  Smith  and 
turned  stage  driver,  and  was  killed  by  road 
agents,  and  so  forth. 

Why  do  I  tell  you  all  this,  dear?  Because 
it  is  heavy  on  my  heart.  Because  I  walk 
the  Valley  of  Humility.  Because  I  am  sub- 
duing myself  to  permanent  consciousness  of 
my  unworthiness  to  unloose  the  lachet  of  Dr. 
Barritz's  shoe.  Because,  oh  dear,  oh  dear, 
there's  a  cousin  of  Dumps  at  this  hotel!  I 
haven't  spoken  to  him.  I  never  had  any  ac- 
quaintance with  him,  but — do  you  suppose 
he  has  recognized  me?  Do,  please,  give  me 
in  your  next  your  candid,  sure-enough  opin- 


AN  HEIRESS  FROM  REDHORSE.  295 

ion  about  it,  and  say  you  don't  think  so.  Do 
you  think  He  knows  about  me  already  and 
that  that  is  why  He  left  me  last  evening  when 
He  saw  that  I  blushed  and  trembled  like  a 
fool  under  His  eyes?  You  know  I  can't  bribe 
all  the  newspapers,  and  I  can't  go  back  on 
anybody  who  was  good  to  Gunny  at  Red- 
horse — not  if  I'm  pitched  out  of  society  into 
the  sea.  So  the  skeleton  sometimes  rattles 
behind  the  door.  I  never  cared  much  before, 
as  you  know,  but  now — now  it  is  not  the 
same.  Jack  Raynor  I  am  sure  of — he  will 
not  tell  him.  He  seems,  indeed,  to  hold  him 
in  such  respect  as  hardly  to  dare  speak  to 
him  at  all,  and  I'm  a  good  deal  that  way  my- 
self. Dear,  dear!  I  wish  I  had  something  be- 
sides a  million  dollars!  If  Jack  were  three 
inches  taller  I'd  marry  him  alive  and  go  back 
to  Redhorse  and  wear  sackcloth  again  to  the 
end  of  my  miserable  days. 

July  25. 

We  had  a  perfectly  splendid  sunset  last 
evening,  and  I  must  tell  you  all  about  it.  I 
ran  away  from  Auntie  and  everybody,  and 
was  walking  alone  on  the  beach.  I  expect 
you  to  believe,  you  infidel!  that  I  had  not 
looked  out  of  my  window  on  the  seaward  side 
of  the  hotel  and  seen  him  walking  alone  on 


2 96  A  A"  HEIR  ESS  J-'K OM  R  KDHO R SE. 

the  beach.  If  you  are  not  lost  to  every  feel- 
ing of  womanly  delicacy  you  will  accept  my 
statement  without  question.  I  soon  estab- 
lished myself  under  my  sunshade  and  had 
for  some  time  been  gazing  out  dreamily  over 
the  sea,  when,  he  approached,  walking  close 
to  the  edge  of  the  water—  it  was  ebb  tide.  I 
assure  you  the  wet  sand  actually  brightened 
about  his  feet!  As  he  approached  me,  he 
lifted  his  hat,  saying,  "Miss  Dement,  may 
I  sit  with  you? — or  will  you  walk  with  me?" 

The  possibility  that  neither  might  be  agree- 
able seems  not  to  have  occurred  to  him.  Did 
you  ever  know  such  assurance?  Assurance? 
My  dear,  it  was  gall,  downright  gall!  Well, 
I  didn't  find  it  wormwood,  and  replied,  with 
my  untutored  Redhorse  heart  in  my  throat, 
"I — I  shall  be  pleased  to  do  anything." 
Could  words  have  been  more  stupid?  There 
are  depths  of  fatuity  in  me,  friend  o'  my  soul, 
which  are  simply  bottomless! 

He  extended  his  hand,  smiling,  and  I  de- 
livered mine  into  it  without  a  moment's  hesi- 
tation, and  when  his  fingers  closed  about  it  to 
assist  me  to  my  feet,  the  consciousness  that  it 
trembled  made  me  blush  worse  than  the  red 
west.  I  got  up,  however,  and,  after  a  while, 
observing  that  he  had  not  let  go  my  hand, 


AN  HEIRESS  FROM  REDHORSE.  2Q7 

I  pulled  on  it  a  little,  but  unsuccessfully.  He 
simply  held  on,  saying  nothing,  but  looking 
down  into  my  face  with  some  kind  of  a  smile 
— I  didn't  know — how  could  I? — whether  it 
was  affectionate,  derisive,  or  what,  for  I  did 
not  look  at  him.  How  beautiful  he  was! — 
with  the  red  fires  of  the  sunset  burning  in  the 
depths  of  his  eyes.  Do  you  know,  dear,  if 
the  Thugs  and  Experts  of  the  Blavatsky  re- 
gion have  any  special  kind  of  eyes?  Ah, 
you  should  have  seen  his  superb  attitude,  the 
godlike  inclination  of  his  head  as  he  stood 
over  me  after  I  had  got  upon  my  feet!  It 
was  a  noble  picture,  but  I  soon  destroyed  it, 
for  I  began  at  once  to  sink  again  to  the  earth. 
There  was  only  one  thing  for  him  to  do,  and 
he  did  it;  he  supported  me  with  an  arm  about 
my  waist. 

' '  Miss  Dement,  are  you  ill  ?  "  he  said. 

It  was  not  an  exclamation;  there  was  neither 
alarm  nor  solicitude  in  it.  If  he  had  added: 
' '  I  suppose  that  is  about  what  I  am  expected 
to  say, ' '  he  would  hardly  have  expressed  his 
sense  of  the  situation  more  clearly.  His  man- 
ner filled  me  with  shame  and  indignation,  for 
I  was  suffering  acutely.  I  wrenched  my  hand 
out  of  his,  grasped  the  arm  supporting  me, 
and  pushing  myself  free,  fell  plump  into  the 


298  AN  HEIRESS  FROM  REDHOKSE. 

sand  and  sat  helpless.  My  hat  had  fallen  off 
in  the  struggle,  and  my  hair  tumbled  about  my 
face  and  shoulders  in  the  most  mortifying 
way. 

"Go  away  from  me,"  I  cried,  half  chok- 
ing. "  O,  please  go  away,  you — you  Thug! 
How  dare  you  think  that  when  my  leg  is 
asleep?" 

I  actually  said  those  identical  words!  And 
then  I  broke  down  and  sobbed.  Irene,  I 
blubbered! 

His  manner  altered  in  an  instant — I  could 
see  that  much  through  my  fingers  and  hair. 
He  dropped  on  one  knee  beside  me,  parted 
the  tangle  of  hair,  and  said,  in  the  tender- 
est  way:  "  My  poor  girl,  God  knows  I  have 
not  intended  to  pain  you.  How  should  I  ?— 
I  who  love  you — I  who  have  loved  you  for — 
for  years  and  years ! ' ' 

He  had  pulled  my  wet  hands  away  from 
my  face  and  was  covering  them  with  kisses. 
My  cheeks  were  like  two  coals,  my  whole 
face  was  flaming,  and,  I  think,  steaming. 
What  could  I  do?  I  hid  it  on  his  shoulder — 
there  was  no  other  place.  And,  O  my  dear 
friend,  how  my  leg  tingled  and  thrilled,  and 
how  I  wanted  to  kick ! 

We  sat  so  for  a  long   time.     He  had  re- 


AN  HEIRESS  FROM  REDHORSE.  299 

leased  one  of  my  hands  to  pass  his  arm  about 
me  again,  and  I  possessed  myself  of  my 
handkerchief  and  was  drying  my  eyes  and 
my  nose.  I  would  not  look  up  until  that 
was  done;  he  tried  in  vain  to  push  me  a  little 
away  and  gaze  into  my  eyes.  Presently, 
when  it  was  all  right,  and  it  had  grown  a  bit 
dark,  I  lifted  my  head,  looked  him  straight 
in  the  eyes,  and  smiled  my  best — my  level 
best,  dear. 

"What  do  you  mean,"  I  said,  "by  'years 
and  years'  ? ' ' 

"Dearest,"  he  replied,  very  gravely,  very 
earnestly,  "in  the  absence  of  the  sunken 
cheeks,  the  hollow  eyes,  the  lank  hair,  the 
slouching  gait,  the  rags,  dirt,  and  youth,  can 
you  not — will  you  not  understand?  Gunny, 
I'm  Dumps!" 

In  a  moment  I  was  upon  my  feet  and  he 
upon  his.  I  seized  him  by  the  lapels  of  his 
coat  and  peered  into  his  handsome  face  in  the 
deepening  darkness.  I  was  breathless  with 
excitement. 

"  And  you  are  not  dead  1"  I  asked,  hardly 
knowing  what  I  said. 

"Only  dead  in  love,  dear.  I  recovered 
from  the  road  agent's  bullet,  but  this,  I  fear, 
is  fatal." 


300  AN  HEfRESS  FROM  RED  HORSE- 

"But  about  Jack— Mr.  Raynor?  Don't 
you  know — ' ' 

"I  am  ashamed  to  say,  darling,  that  it 
was  through  that  unworthy  person's  invita- 
tion that  I  came  here  from  Vienna." 

Irene,  they  have  played  it  upon  your  af- 
fectionate friend, 

MARY  JANE  DEMENT. 

P.  S. — The  worst  of  it  is  that  there  is  no 
mystery.  That  was  an  invention  of  Jack  to 
arouse  my  curiosity  and  interest.  James  is 
not  a  Thug.  He  solemnly  assures  me  that  in 
all  his  wanderings  he  has  never  set  foot  in  Se- 
poy. 


